Sir,
We would like to share ideas on “Prevalence and determinants of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus carrier among staff of a tertiary eye hospital in Saudi Arabia.[1]” Khan et al. proposed that “The high prevalence of MRSA and relatively easy treat MRSA carriers points at the need for universal screening for MRSA carriers among eye health staff.[1]” The identification of MRSA might be useful and have implication for disease control. There are two important factors affecting rate of positivity that should be mentioned. First, a good clinical specimen collection, the preanalytical factor, is important. A false negative due to poor swabbing is possible.[2] Second, quality control of analytical process within microbiology is important. Invalid result of analysis is possible and it is different among different diagnostic test kits.[3]
Due to the nature of retrospective analysis of the present study, it is difficult to control both mentioned preanalytical and analytical factors.
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Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References
- 1.Khan RA, Ahmed A, Sapitan A, Maktabi A, Al-Subaie S, Khandekar R. Prevalence and determinants of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus carrier among staff of a tertiary eye hospital in Saudi Arabia. Oman J Ophthalmol. 2021;14:88–93. doi: 10.4103/ojo.ojo_98_21. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Rioux J, Edwards J, Bresee L, Abu-Ulba A, Yu S, Dersch-Mills D, et al. Nasal-swab results for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and associated infections. Can J Hosp Pharm. 2017;70:107–12. doi: 10.4212/cjhp.v70i2.1642. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Rabaan AA, Bazzi AM. Variation in MRSA identification results from different generations of Xpert MRSA real-time PCR testing kits from nasal swabs. J Infect Public Health. 2017;10:799–802. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2017.01.007. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
