Food handlers as potential sources of dissemination of virulent strains of Staphylococcus aureus in the community

• Autor(a) principal: Castro, A.
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Santos, C., Meireles, H., Silva, Joana, Teixeira, Paula
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/19880
• topic: Staphylococcus aureus; Food handlers; Hands and nosecarriage; Antimicrobialresistance; Enterotoxin genesSummary

Food handlers may constitute a reservoir of virulent strains of Staphy-lococcus aureus and may be vehicles of their transmission to food.One hundred and sixty-two volunteers were assessed for the presence of S. aureuson the hands and in the nose. S. aureus was isolated by routine procedures, and theisolates were tested for susceptibility against a panel of nine antimicrobial agents.The isolates were further characterized by SmaI-PFGE profiling and the presence ofvirulence factors.Results: The prevalence of S. aureus was 19.8% in the nose and 11.1% on the hands;6.2% of the individuals carried S. aureus both in their noses and hands, and threeindividuals had the same strain (PFGE type) in the nose and on the hands. Although82% of the isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic, none demonstrated thepresence of either mecA gene or resistance to oxacillin (none identified as MRSA).Sixty-eight percent of the isolates from the nose and hands possessed enterotoxingenes.This study revealed a high prevalence of antibiotic resistance and virulence deter-minants among the isolates, including not only classical and novel enterotoxin genesbut also major virulence factors such as tst. Potential dissemination of these strainsin the community is a matter of concern.© 2015 King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. Published by ElsevierLimited. All rights reserved