PREVALENCE OF STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS PHAGE-TYPES AND THEIR CORRELATION TO ANTI-MICROBIAL RESISTANCE

Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of nosocomial and community acquired infections. The increasing prevalence of multiple drug resistant strains cause failure of treatment of patients resulting into prolonged hospital stay. Phagetyping is a successful method of strain characterization in S. aureus and can be applied when studying the spread of staphylococcal infection and its origin in an outbreak. The present study was conducted to identify the currently existing phage groups of S. aureus, their prevalence and resistance to antibiotics. A total of 99 isolates of S. aureus were phage typed and their antibiotic resistance was determined using standard microbiological procedures. Of these, 72.72% isolates were typable. Phage group III was the most predominant (54.54%) out of which 66.66% were typed by phage type 42 E and 38.88% were typed by phage type 47. MSSA strains were more sensitive as compared to MRSA strains. Phage group II isolates were resistant to penicillin.