Prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasopharyngeal carriage in children from urban community at Nagpur.

There has been a rise in the hospital acquired as well as the community acquired Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aures (MRSA) infections in the recent years. We conducted a study to detect colonization rate of staphylococci in the nasopharynx in children and prevalence of MRSA nasopharyngeal carriage in pediatric population. The study included 1300 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from school going children between six to ten years age from Nagpur urban community and inoculated on blood agar for isolation of staphylococci. Isolates were subjected to antimicrobial testing and staphylococcus aureus isolates were also Phage typed at Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. Staphylococci were isolated from nasopharynx of 138 (10.62%) children. Nasopharyngeal carriage of staphylococcus aureus was detected in 7.38% children. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococci constituted 4.16% of the Staphylococcus aureus strains. Colonization rate of MRSA in the pediatric population in the community was detected to be 0.31%. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasopharyngeal carriage, though not at very high rate, is prevalent in the pediatric population in the community.