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The 11th case of vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) since 2002 in the United States was recently confirmed. Although VRSA infection continues to be a rare occurrence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a clinical reminder on May 6 about the important role of clinical laboratories and infection preventionists in identifying and containing VRSA.
Infectious diseases specialists should be familiar with the laboratory procedures for detecting VRSA at their hospital, said Peggie Neill, MD, FIDSA, chair of IDSA's Rapid Communications Work Group. CDC provides a testing algorithm on its website. ID specialists should also review their hospital's internal policies to ensure that the correct lines of communication are already established between the microbiology laboratory, infection preventionists, other relevant hospital personnel, and local and state public health departments to ensure that cases are promptly recognized, isolated, and managed appropriately, Dr. Neill advised. It is particularly important that stakeholders communicate and share action plans when the isolate is a "possible" case of vancomycin-intermediate/resistant S. aureus (VISA/VRSA), and they should not wait for laboratory confirmation to notify each other.
For more information, see CDC's clinical reminder and Recommendations to Prevent the Spread of Vancomycin Resistance from the Hospital Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC).
To find additional recent ID-related alerts from CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), please see this related IDSA News article. As an IDSA member, you can also sign up to receive these breaking alerts by e-mail. Visit IDSA's website for more information.
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