Antibiotic Resistant Staphylococci

An antibiotic resistant staphylococcus with bacteriophage pattern 52/42B/80/81* is frequently responsible for infectious outbreaks in the newborn nursery. Some time after an outbreak had occurred in the University of California's hospital nursery, family members of the infants were found to be infected with this strain. Two families were studied in detail. In one of them, infection developed in six of the seven members within eight months after the infant's arrival. In the other, half of the family members had recurrent infections during a 13-month period.Infants who left the nursery as asymptomatic carriers were found as likely to transmit the infectious strain as those with clinical infection. Considerable time sometimes elapsed before infection developed in either the infant or the family members. In one instance the first familial infection occurred six months after the infant had left the nursery as an asymptomatic carrier. Newborn infants are quite likely to disseminate antibiotic resistant staphylococci which they may acquire from a hospital nursery. Infections developing among persons in contact with a young infant must be treated with the possibility of a resistant hospital staphylococcus in mind.