Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jun;131(6):294-302.
doi: 10.1111/apm.13318. Epub 2023 Apr 14.

Whole genome sequencing reveals two genetically distinct MRSA outbreaks among people who inject drugs and homeless people in Copenhagen

Mette Damkjaer Bartels  1   2 , Mona Katrine Alberthe Holm  1 , Peder Worning  1 , Bodil Stavad  3 , Uffe Vest Schneider  1 , Heidi Meiniche  1 , Henrik Thiesen  3 , Henrik Westh  1   2
Affiliations

Whole genome sequencing reveals two genetically distinct MRSA outbreaks among people who inject drugs and homeless people in Copenhagen

Mette Damkjaer Bartels et al. APMIS. 2023 Jun.

Abstract

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) has greatly improved the detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission between people. We describe the transmission of two unique MRSA clones among homeless people in Copenhagen using WGS and core genome MLST (cgMLST). In 2014, an accumulation of MRSA bacteremia cases among homeless people admitted to our hospital was recognized, all having the rare MRSA spa t5147/ST88. The European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS) categories revealed that people who inject drugs (PWID) frequently visiting the milieu but living in private accommodation accounted for most cases. Hoping to terminate the transmission, 161 homeless people were MRSA screened in 2015, but no additional cases were found. From 2009 to 2018, 60 patients with genomically related t5147/ST88 isolates were found, of these 70% were confirmed to come from the homeless setting and 17% had bacteremia. From 2017 to 2020, cgMLST revealed a smaller MRSA outbreak including 13 PWID with a completely different clone, t1476/ST8, of which 15% had bacteremia. Our study confirms that WGS and cgMLST is excellent to reveal MRSA outbreaks. The ETHOS categorization can be useful to find the primary source of spread in the homeless community.

Keywords: MRSA; PWID; WGS; cgMLST; homeless; t1476/ST8; t5147/ST88.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Vandenesch F, Naimi T, Enright MC, Lina G, Nimmo GR, Heffernan H, et al. Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus carrying panton-valentine leukocidin genes: worldwide emergence. Emerg Infect Dis. 2003;9(8):978-84.
    1. Petersen A, Larssen KW, Gran FW, Enger H, Haeggman S, Mäkitalo B, et al. Increasing incidences and clonal diversity of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the Nordic Countries - results from the Nordic MRSA Surveillance. Front Microbiol. 2021;12(April):1-10.
    1. Humphreys H, Coleman DC. Contribution of whole-genome sequencing to understanding of the epidemiology and control of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. J Hosp Infect. 2019;102(2):189-99.
    1. Earls MR, Coleman DC, Brennan GI, Fleming T, Monecke S, Slickers P, et al. Intra-hospital, inter-hospital and intercontinental spread of ST78 MRSA from two neonatal intensive care unit outbreaks established using whole-genome sequencing. Front Microbiol. 2018;9(July):1-13.
    1. Bartels MD, Worning P, Andersen LP, Bes M, Enger H, Ås CG, et al. Repeated introduction and spread of the MRSA clone t304/ST6 in northern Europe. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2021;27(2):284.e1-5.

LinkOut - more resources