Prevalence of Acinetobacter baumannii and other Acinetobacter spp. in faecal samples from non-hospitalised individuals.

In total, 226 individuals from the community were investigated for faecal carriage of Acinetobacter spp. by broth enrichment culture, followed by growth on blood agar and/or Leeds Acinetobacter Medium (LAM). Acinetobacter baumannii was isolated on both LAM and blood agar from one of 100 specimens in the UK and one of 126 specimens in The Netherlands. The predominant species were Acinetobactor johnsonii and genomic sp. 11, which were cultured from 22 and five specimens, respectively. A. baumannii did not seem to be widespread in the faecal flora of individuals in the community.

Diversity of Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from two European regions with different prevalences of methicillin resistance.

The genodiversity of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from the Nottingham region of the United Kingdom was compared with isolates from the Freiburg region of Germany. The prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates was higher in Nottingham than in Freiburg. In patients from Nottingham hospitals, 80% of MRSA isolates were classical epidemic MRSA-15, but genotypic variants of epidemic MRSA-15 comprised 72% of isolates from Nottingham community-based patients. In contrast, MRSA isolates from Freiburg showed greater diversity, but 47% and 23% of isolates, respectively, belonged to two predominant MRSA genotypes found in isolates from both hospitalised and community-based patients. The results suggest that genodiversity becomes increasingly more confined in settings with a higher frequency and longer duration of MRSA prevalence.