TY - JOUR AU - Bartels, Mette Damkjær AU - Boye, Kit AU - Larsen, Anders Rhod AU - Skov, Robert AU - Westh, Henrik T1 - Rapid Increase of Genetically Diverse Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Copenhagen, Denmark T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2007 VL - 13 IS - 10 SP - 1533 SN - 1080-6059 AB - In Copenhagen, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) accounted for <15 isolates per year during 1980–2002. However, since 2003 an epidemic increase has been observed, with 33 MRSA cases in 2003 and 110 in 2004. We analyzed these 143 cases epidemiologically and characterized isolates by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, Staphylococcus protein A (spa) typing, multilocus sequence typing, staphylococcal chromosome cassette (SCC) mec typing, and detection of Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes. Seventy-one percent of cases were community-onset MRSA (CO-MRSA); of these, 36% had no identified risk factors. We identified 29 spa types (t) and 16 sequence types (STs) belonging to 8 clonal complexes and 3 ST singletons. The most common clonal types were t024/ST8-IV, t019/ST30-IV, t044/ST80-IV, and t008/ST8-IV (USA300). A total of 86% of isolates harbored SCCmec IV, and 44% had PVL. Skin and soft tissue infections dominated. CO-MRSA with diverse genetic backgrounds is rapidly emerging in a low MRSA prevalence area. KW - MRSA KW - Panton-Valentine leukocidin KW - MLST KW - spa typing KW - Staphylococcus aureus KW - Community-onset MRSA KW - SCCmec KW - USA300 KW - PFGE KW - Nursing home KW - research KW - Denmark DO - 10.3201/eid1310.070503 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/10/07-0503_article ER - End of Reference