Vancomycin-resistant sequence type 796 - rapid international dissemination of a new epidemic clone.

Background: Vancomycin-resistant (VRE) is a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. New, presumably better-adapted strains of VRE appear unpredictably; it is uncertain how they spread despite improved infection control. We aimed to investigate the relatedness of a novel sequence type (ST) of - ST796 - very near its time of origin from hospitals in three Australian states and New Zealand.