MRSA study: Eight cases of a virulent strain of community-acquired MRSA have been detected in the Republic for the first time. The cases were detected during a study by the National MRSA Reference Laboratory in Dublin.
Preliminary details of the study have been reported by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), formerly the National Disease Surveillance Centre, in one of its regular EPI-Insight bulletins.
What is unusual about these eight cases of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is that they contained a toxin called PVL or Panton-Valentine leucocidin which can damage an individual's white blood cells - the cells used to fight infection.
Earlier this year an inquest in the UK heard that a healthy 18-year-old Royal Marine trainee died because a wound on his leg became infected with PVL.
The HPSC report said two of the eight cases were reported in 2003 and the other six were reported over a two-week period in 2004.
"Seven of these eight patients lacked risk factors for hospital- acquisition of MRSA. Specifically, there had been no hospital admission for at least two years, no antimicrobial use within the last year and no close contact with a healthcare worker or relative who had recently been in hospital," it said. "The isolate from the eighth patient was probably acquired in the community abroad," it added.
Four of the cases were detected in one family - a child with a soft tissue infection and three family members who had no symptoms. None of them was a multi-drug resistant form of MRSA, it added.
"Studies to further characterise these isolates and to determine the prevalence of PVL among other patient populations are ongoing, but the results of this preliminary investigation suggest that community-acquired MRSA may already be a problem in Ireland," it continued.
Meanwhile, Nuacht TG4 reported last night that a letter sent by the National MRSA Reference Laboratory to the Department of Health indicated it did not have resources to offer PVL detection as a routine service.
"We hope that, in time, a routine service can be implemented," the letter, signed by the director of the laboratory, Dr Brian O'Connell and its chief medical scientist Dr Angela Rossney, said.
"These isolates were recognised as PVL-positive because the National MRSA Reference Laboratory was establishing PCR assay to detect PVL as part of a grant-aided study of the prevalence of PVL in MRSA in Ireland," the letter said.
More than 500 cases of MRSA bloodstream infections in patients were reported by hospitals to the HPSC last year. And figures released under the Freedom of Information Act to this newspaper last month indicated there were also around 7,000 patients found to be "colonised" by the MRSA superbug in 36 Irish hospitals last year. The first cases of animals, mainly pet dogs, becoming infected with MRSA, in the Republic were reported last December.