Research has shown that hospital cockroaches may be mechanical vectors for MRSA, according to a article on the Infection Control Today website.
The research studied the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of antibiotic resistance in the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains isolated from hospital cockroaches.
A total of 530 cockroaches (P. americana and B. germanica) were collected and their gut content and external washing samples were subjected to bacterial isolation.
Prevalence of MRSA strains in the cockroaches were 52.77 and 43.33 percent respectively. External washing samples of P. americana cockroaches had the highest prevalence of MRSA strains (59.57%).
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