Skin carriage of acinetobacters in Hong Kong

We studied the carriage of Acinetobacter spp. at five superficial sites in 79 patients from two hospitals, in 133 healthy controls from the community (medical students and new nurses), and in 198 student nurses in different classes. A total of 431 isolates from 364 positive sites of 201 subjects and 124 blood culture isolates (1997 to 1998) were genospeciated by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis. Genospecies 3 was the most common species. The carriage rate of student nurses (42 of 131) was significantly lower than that of new nurses from the community (25 of 38) (chi-square test, P = 0.0004; odds ratio [OR], 4.08; 95% confidence limits, 1.78 to 9.41) but not significantly different (P = 0.1) from that of patients in the same hospital (20 of 42). Genospecies from blood cultures and subjects (acute patients and student nurses) from Prince of Wales Hospital were similar to one another but different from subjects from the community or from another hospital (chi-square test, P < 0.0001). Half of the subjects who were positive at at least two sites had different genospecies. Of the 28 sites examined, 68% showed strain variation among isolates of the same genospecies by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis. Half of the 106 subjects who had samples taken again within 6 weeks or 6 months later were positive only once. In the 17 subjects who were positive on at least two occasions, each occasion yielded different genospecies in 13 subjects. Our results indicate that skin carriage in the majority of healthy subjects is characterized by low density, variation in genospecies and strains, short-term duration, and the typicality of a given locality.