Methicillin-Resistant Nasal Colonization among Healthcare Workers at Kampala International University Teaching Hospital, Southwestern Uganda.

Whereas is a pathogen, it colonizes healthy people as normal flora without causing any symptoms or illness. Probably because of greater exposure, healthcare workers (HCWs) are more colonized, serving as reservoir for endogenous infections as well as dissemination. In developing countries including Uganda, there is scarcity of the literature on carriage among HCWs, making infection control difficult. This study aimed at determining the nasal carriage rate and comparing the antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of methicillin-resistant (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible (MSSA) isolates from HCWs of Kampala International University Teaching Hospital. Nasal swab specimens from HCWs were screened for MRSA using both phenotypic and genotypic methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the MRSA and MSSA isolates was performed using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Out of the 97 participants, 28 (28.8%) participants were nasal carriers of of which 13 (46.4%) were phenotypically MRSA (resistant to cefoxitin) and 8 (28.6%) were genotypically MRSA (had gene). Only 6 isolates of the 13 isolates (46%) which showed resistance to cefoxitin had gene detectable while 2 (13.3%) of the 15 cefoxitin susceptible isolates were found to carry gene. The study thus shows that methicillin resistance in may not only be determined by gene.