Gram Positive Bacteria Carriage among Health Care Workers: An Under-Reported Source of Infections?

Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes are two highly infectious pathogens implicated in a significant percentage of healthcare associated infections. They produce wide range of infections, from mere folliculitis & furuncles, cellulitis, myositis, & glomerulonephritis to conditions with very significant morbidity such as necrotizing fasciitis & Toxic Shock syndrome, and thus represent an important subset of infections that need to be tackled urgently. To assess prevalence of nasal as well as oropharyngeal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus & Streptococcus pyogenes among health-care workers and its antimicrobial resistance pattern. One nasal swab & two oropharyngeal swabs were collected from each participant, with one nasal & oropharyngeal swab cultured on blood agar & mannitol salt agar for Staphylococcus aureus, and the second oropharyngeal swabs were cultured on Crystal violet blood agar for Streptococcus pyogenes, further subjected to susceptibility test by disc diffusion method on Muller-Hinton agar as per CLSI guidelines 2019. Prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus carriage was 9% which includes 4% It is nasal, 4.5% oropharyngeal & 0.5% both. Prevalence of MRSA, MLSB & mupirocin resistant Staphylococcus aureus was 1.5%,4% & 0%respectively. Prevalence of oropharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pyogenes was 1.5%. This study feature the need of screening of Health-care workers for nasal as well as oropharyngeal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus & Streptococcus pyogenes & further its antimicrobial resistance pattern.