Abstract

The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of methicillin resistant coagulase positive Staphlococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in two major hospitals in Asir region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to compare it with the community-acquired infections. Two hundreds and ten coagulase positive S. aureus recovered from 9831 specimens from various infections at Asir Central Hospital and Abha General Hospital, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), were tested against 44 commonly used antibacterial agents. One hundred of the isolates were from hospital-acquired infections, 100 from community-acquired infections and 10 isolates were collected from the hospital environment. All isolates were found resistant to aztreonam, colistin, mecillinam, metronidazole, polymyxin B and nalidixic acid but were sensitive to vancomycin, nitrofurantoin and novobiocin. Various levels of resistant were recorded for the remaining antibiotics. High resistance to antimicrobial agents was detected among hospital acquired infections compared to community acquired infections (p<0.01). The resistance rates of S. aureus to antimicrobial agents among hospital acquired infections isolates were significantly higher (p<0.05) than community acquired infections. This implies that hospital environment is a strong risk factor for the prevalence of MRSA in the hospitalized patients, visitors, and hospital staff with potential risk of spreading to the community.

Key words: Staphlococcus aureus, coagulase positive, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).