Epidemiologic study of neonatal subcutaneous gangrene caused by multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Forty-five cases of neonatal subcutaneous gangrene were admitted between Nov. 1985 and Feb. 1987, with a mortality of 6.6%. This paper presents the first epidemiologic study of 20 cases of this disease caused by multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Eight of 20 cases were caused by an epidemic strain belonging to phage 29 (group I) and carrying 2.8, 3.3, 4.2 and 28.5-34.0 kb plasmid DNA. The restriction endonuclease analysis confirmed that the plasmid DNA of approximately similar size in different isolates were identical or highly homologous. According to the results of an epidemiologic study the source of infection of one patient who died was her grandmother and the other one was her mother, so the family members can also be the source of neonatal infection caused by multi-resistant S. aureus.