Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus: bad news and good news from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net, formerly EARSS), 2002 to 2009

This article reports a significant increase of antimicrobial resistance in E. coli invasive isolates and an overall increase in BSIs caused by this microorganism. This is a serious concern since, if the increasing trend of antimicrobial resistance and the spread of ESBL are not contained, the use of carbapenems will increase favouring the emergence of carbapenemase-producing enterobacteria. This has already been observed for Klebsiella pneumoniae in Greece, Israel and Cyprus [1,2].

At the same time, S. aureus showed a relatively smaller increase in the number of reported BSIs, but a significant decrease in the proportion of MRSA overall in the countries participating in EARSS/EARS-Net. This could be the result of public health efforts targeted at the containment of MRSA in several European countries.* Although an overall decreasing trend for MRSA is evident in Europe, not all countries contribute to this result. Efforts to reduce the occurrence of MRSA should remain a priority irrespective of decreasing trends.

In this context, coordinated international surveillance is particularly important in order to obtain accurate knowledge of the occurrence and spread of antimicrobial resistance and to plan public health interventions.