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The vanA gene was acquired by a CA-MRSA strain that caused bloodstream infection.
After emerging in the 1990s, community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) spread rapidly across the U.S. Fortunately, most infections caused by these organisms have been skin abscesses with low risk for serious complications. In 2002, the vanA gene cluster, which confers vancomycin resistance, was described in MRSA. Despite fears that vancomycin-resistant MRSA (VRSA) strains would become common, only 13 VRSA isolates have been reported in the U.S. — all from patients with skin or soft-tissue infections. Multilocus sequence typing has shown that 12 of them belong to clonal complex 5, which is hospital-associated.
Now, investigators h…