Kenyan_MRSA_seq

The current scientific literature on the prevalence, epidemiology and disease burden caused by Staphylococcus aureus in Africa, and Kenya in particular, is limited to a small number of studies in sporadic settings A recent literature review on articles reporting the prevalence of Methicillin resistance Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) did not find a single study in Africa from which MRSA colonization prevalence could be estimated confidently. As a result, there is a paucity of data on carriage rates in the community, hospital inpatients and medical staff and other important S. aureus carriage risk groups such a livestock workers. Surveillance data on the real burden of disease caused by S. aureus and MRSA infections in the community and health-care settings in Kenya is lacking. Genomic epidemiology has recently been introduced as a powerful tool for national surveillance programmes that can provide valuable information on the emergence of high-risk pandemic clones and their attached virulence and antibiotic resistance potential. S. aureus strains selected from human carriage and infection and from animals will be sequenced to understand the national and local epidemiology of S. aureus in Kenya.