Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a strain of Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin/oxacillin. The high incidence of resistance to most commonly used antibiotics including carbapenems and cephalosporins among strains of MRSA present challenges to the management of cases. Vancomycin has been identified as a common antibiotic with demonstrated activity against MRSA. In most developing countries including Ghana, MRSA is not regarded as an issue of public health importance. It is not among the priority diseases under surveillance in Ghana. Active efforts at identifying cases and instituting appropriate preventive measures are largely non-existent. This is due to the unavailability of laboratories with requisite human resource and logistics to run tests for MRSA. This has further compounded the perception of non-importance with respect to MRSA in developing countries. We therefore set out to review cases of MRSA seen in a Teaching Hospital in Ghana to estimate the burden of the infection and to examine the trends in antibiotic sensitivity and clinical outcome of cases.
Objective
To review laboratory and clinical data on cases of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections.