Obesity as a Determinant of Staphylococcus Aureus Colonization Among Maximum Security Prisoners in New York State

ISSUE: Corynebacteria are aerobic gram-positive rods which are one of normal microbiota in human skin and mucous membranes. Corynebacteria are also widely distributed in the environment and have highly intrinstic antimicrobial resistance. We have encountered the outbreak of multi-drug resistant (MDR) Corynebacterium striatum in Japanese university hospital. PROJECT: MDR C. striatum was defined as resistant against over three classes of antimicrobial agents. Thirty-three strains of MDR C. striatumwere isolated from January 2013 to March 2013 in 13 units of Aichi Medical University Hospital. We performed epidemiological analysis from the aspects of clinical features and also performed using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). RESULTS: Thirty-three strains of MDRC. striatumwere isolated from sputum, pus, central venous (CV)-catheter and urine with 76%, 8%, 6.5% and 4%, respectively. Twenty-four patients among 33 patients (72.7%) needed critical care at medical intensive care unit (ICU) or high care unit (HCU). We could divide C. striatum isolates into 6 different groups using PFGE analysis, which have judged as nosocomial spread of MDR C. striatum. There have been no infectious patients by MDR C. striatum to treat with antimicrobial agents. LESSON LEARNED: There have been a few reports on nosocomial spread of MDR C. striatum. Since there are also several reports on infections by C. striatum in immunocompromised hosts although C. striatum consists of normal flora in humans, C. striatum should be considered as one of important nosocomial pathogens and also might be one of good benchmarker for nococomial infection control.