Climatic Factors and Community — Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Skin and Soft-Tissue Infections — A Time-Series Analysis Study

Krushna Chandra Sahoo, Soumyakanta Sahoo, Gaetano Marrone, Ashish Pathak, Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg and Ashok J. Tamhankar
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Krushna Chandra Sahoo: Department of Public Health Sciences (Global health/IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 17177, Sweden
Soumyakanta Sahoo: Department of Microbiology, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Super Religare Laboratories Limited, Kalinga Hospital, Bhubaneswar 751024, India
Gaetano Marrone: Department of Public Health Sciences (Global health/IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 17177, Sweden
Ashish Pathak: Department of Public Health Sciences (Global health/IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 17177, Sweden
Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg: Department of Public Health Sciences (Global health/IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 17177, Sweden
Ashok J. Tamhankar: Department of Public Health Sciences (Global health/IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 17177, Sweden

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: Skin and soft tissue infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus (SA-SSTIs) including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have experienced a significant surge all over the world. Changing climatic factors are affecting the global burden of dermatological infections and there is a lack of information on the association between climatic factors and MRSA infections. Therefore, association of temperature and relative humidity (RH) with occurrence of SA-SSTIs ( n = 387) and also MRSA ( n = 251) was monitored for 18 months in the outpatient clinic at a tertiary care hospital located in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. The Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method was used for antibiotic susceptibility testing. Time-series analysis was used to investigate the potential association of climatic factors (weekly averages of maximum temperature, minimum temperature and RH) with weekly incidence of SA-SSTIs and MRSA infections. The analysis showed that a combination of weekly average maximum temperature above 33 °C coinciding with weekly average RH ranging between 55% and 78%, is most favorable for the occurrence of SA-SSTIs and MRSA and within these parameters, each unit increase in occurrence of MRSA was associated with increase in weekly average maximum temperature of 1.7 °C ( p = 0.044) and weekly average RH increase of 10% ( p = 0.097).

Keywords: skin and soft tissue infections; Staphylococcus aureus; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA); temperature; relative humidity; time-series analysis; antibiotic susceptibility testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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