EDITORIALS The Emergence of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

T H I S ISSUE features a series of papers on strains of Staphylococcus aureus that are resistant to multiple antimicrobial agents, most notably the penicillinase-resistant penicillins, including methicillin. These strains were recognized in Europe soon after the introduction of methicillin in 1960 (1). Outbreaks of hospital-acquired infection occurred during that time in many European institutions, where these multiply resistant strains frequently persisted as endemic nosocomial pathogens. However, similar epidemics were rarely reported from other parts of the world (2, 3). Renewed interest in multiply resistant S. aureus has been generated by numerous recent reports of outbreaks of nosocomial infection caused by these strains in hospitals throughout the United States. Seven of the eight papers on the topic in this issue were presented recently at the 21st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology. This series represents a synthesis of current concepts of the epidemiology