National hospital infection surveillance on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

National hospital infection surveillances on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) had been carried out in 1995 and 1996. Recently, in the UK and the USA, the prevalence of MRSA has increased and strict precautions against MRSA are recommended. In Japan, hospital infection rates of MRSA have appeared to be stable in recent years, but a reevaluation is required to confirm this assumption. In a nationwide surveillance, the incidences of MRSA hospital infections per 100 admissions remained stable at between 0.7 and 0.8 from 1999 to 2003, with a tendency towards a slight decline being observed. This study shows that the precautions against MRSA infection in Japan may prove to be an effective preventive measure.