[Staphylococcus aureus--33-year epidemiology in Denmark. From hospital epidemics to endogenous infections?]

Data on 591,292 Staphylococcus aureus strains from Danish patients in the period 1960-1992 have shown that penicillin- and streptomycin-resistant strains of the 52,52A,80,81 phagetype complex dominated around 1960 and were replaced by multiresistant strains of the 83A complex during 1965-1975. Since then the majority of the strains have been resistant to penicillin only, firstly due to an increased occurrence of the 94,96 complex followed by strains of type 95 and group II. Today only 0.2-0.3% of the strains are multiresistant and often originate from patients hospitalized abroad. In the first half of the observation period strains from hospitals were more antibiotic-resistant and dominated by special phagetypes compared to community-strains, today there are no differences. Hospital outbreaks with S. aureus have in recent years only rarely been detected in Denmark and phagetyping results might indicate that today patients are mainly infected by their own strain. In the future, infection control and surveillance of antibiotic resistance and phagetypes should be continued together with new studies on carriage and foreign body infections.