The Epidemiology and Control of VRE: Still Struggling to Come of Age

• Published in: Infection control and hospital epidemiology Vol. 20; no. 10; pp. 650 - 652
• Main Author: Mayhall, C. Glen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States The University of Chicago Press 01-10-1999; Cambridge University Press
• Subjects: Cross Infection - epidemiology; Cross Infection - prevention & control; Disease transmission; Editorial; Enterococcus - drug effects; Enterococcus faecium; Environmental disorders; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections - epidemiology; Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections - prevention & control; Hospitals; Humans; Infection control; Infection Control - trends; Infections; Internships; Nursing; Predisposing factors; Recommendations; United States - epidemiology; Vancomycin Resistance; United States
• ISSN: 0899-823X; 1559-6834
• DOI: 10.1086/501559

Enterococci have caused infections in hospitalized patients for many decades. Given that they were part of the normal flora of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and that they frequently appeared as part of the flora in infections related to fecal contamination, they originally were considered endogenous pathogens of little nosocomial import. This view began to change with the appearance of enterococci resistant to vancomycin in Europe in 1988.1 Vancomycin resistance appeared subsequent to earlier reports of enterococci resistant to pencillin2 and aminoglycosides,3,4 raising the concern that infections caused by vancomycin‐resistant enterococci (VRE) might be difficult, if not impossible, to treat.