In this podcast, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Alicia Demirjian about the issue of seemingly increasing reports of Staphylococcus capitis cases in neonates. Alicia is Consultant Epidemiologist at the Evelina Children's hospital in London and leads the antimicrobial resistance and prescribing team at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) - formerly Public Health England. Alicia has been working on this issue for a while now and we discuss the problem (and if there is one), findings to date and possible interventions. Some of the papers that we discuss are here, as is a link to the video on how to clean an incubator, a complex piece of equipment that is often still contaminated after cleaning and disinfection.

Cleaning video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELF-0MTFJfE

Papers:

Wirth, T., M. Bergot, et al (2020) Niche specialization and spread of Staphylococcus capitis involved in neonatal sepsis. Nat Microbiol, 5, 735-745. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32341568

Thorn, L. M., et al (2020) Risk factors for Staphylococcus capitis pulsotype NRCS-A colonisation among premature neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary-care hospital: a retrospective case-control study. Infect Prev Pract, 2, 100057. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34368703