A fast, simple test can now reveal whether a hospital patient is carrying a highly virulent, antibiotic-resistant bug or a near identical relation which is much less harmful.
Patients carrying the dangerous version could be kept away from particularly vulnerable groups, such as organ transplant recipients, says Rob Willems of the National Institute of Public Health in Bilthoven. They could also be isolated to help stop the bug spreading.
Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium is carried in the intestine. In the US, it is endemic in hospitals, but is not widely carried by healthy people. In Europe, however, many healthy people carry VREF but epidemics in hospitals in rare.
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Willems鈥� team investigated this contrast and found that there are two closely-related but distinct types of VREF. The type that causes hospital epidemics has variations in a gene associated with increased virulence in a related bacterium.
Rapid spread
鈥淲e can take a sample from a patient, do a genetic test, and have a result in two to three hours,鈥� Willems told 快猫短视频. 鈥淗ere is a very easy way of telling who is carrying the hospital-related VREF and who isn鈥檛.鈥�
VREF can be fatal to people with suppressed immune systems, and cannot be killed by any existing antibiotics. 鈥淎s a result, patients remain infectious for prolonged periods of time. This is an important explanation for the rapid spread of these bacteria in the US,鈥� Willems says.
Increased use of vancomycin in Europe to treat 鈥渟uperbugs鈥� such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is now resulting in VREF outbreaks in European hospitals, Willems says. He hopes the new gene test will help slow the spread of these outbreaks.
More at: The Lancet (vol 357, p 853)