Detection of Vancomycin Resistance among Clinical Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus

Since the emergence of vancomycin resistance in enterococci in 1988 and its ability to transfer the resistance genes (Van A and Van B) to other bacterial species including Staphylococcus aureus, emergence of vancomycin resistance in staphylococci has become a great concern. This study is aims to detect the vancomycin resistance in 20 clinical isolates of S. aureus. We found varied resistance pattern by disc diffusion method and 15% of the isolates was found to be vancomycin resistant strains. We would recommend the diagnostic laboratories to screen S. aureus isolates by the CDC agar screening method and submit strains growing on these plates to reference laboratories for confirmation of vancomycin resistance by determining the MIC.