A team of specialists of the Provincial Hygiene Centerand other medical institutions in Guantanamo, investigated 48 male outpatients and concluded that Staphylococcus epidermidis is an emerging opportunistic bacterium that causes urethritis (swelling and irritationfrom the urethra).
Lourdes Margarita Expósito Boue, a CPHEM microbiologist and one of the authors of the study, specified that the microorganism is part of the normal flora of the skin and mucous membranes, and the emergence is related to its ability to produce biofilms, which favors their proliferation, chronic infections and resistance to treatments.
The analyzes on the pathogen showed high resistance to antibiotics such as azithromycin, penicillin, ampicillin, oxacillin, cephalexin, cefoxitin and amoxicillin with sulbactam, while it showed decreased potency to cotrimoxazole and tetracycline, and null resistance to amikacin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin.
Exposito, Master in Infectious Diseases reported that the observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study covered a universe made up of infected patients who attended the Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 with optional indication of urethral exudate with culture.
In the research of staphylococcus, considered worldwide as the main cause of hospital infections, the experts included variables such as the production of coagulase, catalase and oxidase enzymes, growth on salt mannitol agar, novobiocin sensitivity, biofilm production and resistance to the antimicrobials.
Expósito Boue stressed that it is important to monitor changes in antimicrobial resistance patterns to contribute to the epidemiological study of this infection and to manage the best antibacterial treatment option for patients.
The main results of this research were published in the online digital magazine Información Científica, the official communication organ of the Guantanamo University of Medical Sciences that implements the continuous publication system with summaries dedicated to different topics of Health Sciences, in English and Portuguese.
