Comparison between children treated at home and those requiring hospital admission for rotavirus and other enteric pathogens associated with acute diarrhea in Melbourne, Australia.

The etiology of acute diarrhea in children less than 42 months of age attending one pediatric hospital in Melbourne, Australia, was studied during a 7-month period encompassing the winter of 1984. Pathogens identified in 157 children treated as outpatients with mild disease were compared with those in 232 children hospitalized with severe disease. The pathogens (and frequencies among outpatients and inpatients, respectively) detected were rotaviruses (32.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in neonatal nurseries. Two years' experience in special-care nurseries in Melbourne.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has become an important nosocomial pathogen in the four special-care nurseries in Melbourne during the past two years. Once introduced into a nursery, it can spread rapidly unless specific precautions are taken to prevent it. It has been responsible for a number of serious infections in susceptible infants who have required treatment with the potentially toxic antibiotic agent, vancomycin.

Epidemic of hospital-acquired infection due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in major Victorian hospitals.

During 1979, the Victorian Health Commission received reports of a rising proportion of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates from an increasing number of institutions. At least 31 metropolitan hospitals were involved, and six of these reported MRSA totaling between 20% and 40% of all Staph. aureus isolates.