Analysis of the Trends of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Gauteng Public Hospitals from 2009 to 2018.

Most investigations into the distribution of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have focused exclusively on bloodborne infections within individual health care institutions for shorter time periods. This has limited the analysis of a community-spread pathogen to snapshots within the hospital domain. Therefore, in this study we determined the demographic and geographical patterns of MRSA infections and their fluctuation in 10 years within all public hospitals in Gauteng, South Africa. A retrospective analysis of S. aureus samples was done by deduplicating samples in two groups. The sample groups were placed into subsets with respect to demographic and geographical fields and compared across the studied period. Logistic regression was utilized to determine odds ratios for resistant infections in univariate and multivariable configurations. A total of 66,071 unique infectious events were identified from the 148,065 samples received over a 10-year period, out of which 14,356 were identified as bacteremia. MRSA bacteremia rates in Gauteng peaked in 2015 and have since decreased. Within Gauteng, metropolitan areas have the greatest burden of MRSA with children under 5 years of age and males being most affected. Medical wards have the highest S. aureus bacteremia rates, while intensive care units have the highest MRSA bacteremia rates. Patient age, admitting ward, and geographical district are the most important associated factors of resistance. MRSA acquisition rates have shown tremendous growth since 2009 but have since spiked and subsequently decreased. This may be due to the initiation of the National Guidelines on Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infectious Disease Surveillance. Further studies to determine the trajectory of infections are required to support these claims.