To better understand the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Canadian hospitals, surveillance has been conducted in sentinel hospitals across the country since 1995. We report the results of the first 5 years of the program.
For each newly identified inpatient with MRSA, medical records were reviewed for demographic and clinical data. Isolates were subjected to susceptibility testing and molecular typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.
A total of 4507 patients infected or colonized with MRSA were identified between January 1995 and December 1999. The rate of MRSA increased each year from a mean of 0.95 per 100 S. aureus isolates in 1995 to 5.97 per 100 isolates in 1999 (0.46 per 1000 admissions in 1995 to 4.12 per 1000 admissions in 1999) (p