AbstractContext: Staphylococcus is a gram-positive, non-motile, nonsporing bacteria that include different opportunistic pathogenic species, responsible for human and animal infections. Aims: To isolate and identify Staphylococcus aureus from different human clinical samples and to determine various virulence factors of these isolates. Settings and Design: Prospective study conducted in Dept of Microbiology, SKIMS J&K. Methods and Material: Various clinical samples eg pus, blood, sputum etc received in the Microbiology laboratory were processed for isolation of Gram positive cocci. Identification of Staphylococcus aureus was done by standard microbiological methods and various virulence factors were determined. Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) was used. Results: A total of 217 strains of Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from 1100 clinical specimens. All the isolates had ability to produce free and bound coagulase enzyme. Out of 217 strains, 42 (19.35%)strains showed only hemolysin production, 84 (38.70%) strains showed only hemolysin production and rest 91(41.93%) strains showed both and hemolysin production. Among all the strains, 203 (93.54%) were positive for producing biofilm and rest of 13 were negative for producing biofilm. Out of 217 strains of S.aureus only 49 (22.58%) strains were able to produce the staphyloxanthin pigment and rest 168 (77.41%) were found to be negative. All strains of S.aureus were sensitive to Linezolid, Teicoplanin and vancomycin. On the other hand strains showed high resistance towards Cefoxitin (65.89%). Conclusions: Prevalence of methicillin rsistance was high in IPD setting (65.89%) and production of various virulence factors like coagulase, hemolysin production, biofilm production and staphyloxanthin pigment production was more common in MRSA than in MSSA thus suggesting that infection control policies should be adhered positively.
Keywords: Staphylococcus Aureus; Prevelance; Virulence Factors.