How is vre detected

This publication is provided for education and information purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical care. Information about a therapy, service, product or treatment does not imply endorsement and is not intended to replace advice from your healthcare professional.

Readers should note that over time currency and completeness of the information may change. All users should seek advice from a qualified healthcare professional for a diagnosis and answers to their medical questions. Skip to navigation Skip to main content Site map Accessibility Contact us. Search this site Search all sites Search. Go to whole of WA Government Search. Open search bar Open navigation Submit search. Health conditions. Facebook Youtube Twitter. Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci VRE Enterococci are bacteria germs that commonly live in the gastrointestinal tract bowels of most people this is called colonisation without causing illness.

There are other antibiotics that can be used to treat VRE infections. Who is most at risk of getting VRE infections? People whose ability to fight infections is low, such as: people with cancer those receiving dialysis people in an intensive care unit people who have had transplants. How is VRE spread? It is not spread through the air or by coughing or sneezing. The symptoms that develop with VRE infection are the ones you would get with any other bacterial infection such as: fever feeling generally unwell rapid pulse rate redness, swelling, pain or heat at a specific site In some cases VRE can enter the bloodstream, from either an existing infection such as an abscess or urinary tract infection or from a medical device such as a urinary catheter or intravenous catheter.

If the VRE are causing infection, there are still some antibiotics that can be used. What happens if you have VRE? However, some extra precautions will be taken: You will be moved to a single room.

Infected patients carry VRE and show clinical signs or symptoms of disease. Colonized patients carry VRE but do not have clinical signs or symptoms of infection. This distinction is important in VRE screening. Patients are usually colonized in the gastrointestinal tract and occasionally in the urinary tract. VRE colony counts are similar in the stool of colonized or infected patients. If a hospital VRE rate is based solely on VRE isolated from clinical cultures infected patients , the facility may be adequately reporting its infection rate, but may be underestimating the true burden and therefore potential transmissibility of VRE in the facility.

Screening for patients colonized by VRE provides information about potential sources of illness. The goal of screening is to identify as many colonized patients as possible so that infection control measures can be implemented to decrease transmission and reduce the number of patients infected with VRE.

Screening for VRE can be accomplished in a number of ways. Black colonies should be identified as an enterococcus to species level and further confirmed as vancomycin resistant by an MIC method before reporting as VRE. Not necessarily. Some hospitals have a large number of VRE that fall into only a few distinct sub-types; one factor causing this could be clonal spread.

Other hospitals have isolates of VRE in many sub-types. Many sub-types within a hospital could be caused by different factors, e. Molecular typing of enterococci in outbreak situations is commonly performed by PFGE. Banding patterns produced by each organism are matched, and this information is combined with epidemiologic data to determine relatedness between strains. Other molecular typing systems include PCR-based typing methods, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis, and ribotyping.

Performance standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Specific and selective chromogenic medium for the detection and differentiation of Enterococcus faecium and E. Enterococci can cause dangerous infections for people who have weakened resistance, such as those who are immunocompromised or who have undergone surgery.

Infection with VRE leaves clinicians with few or no treatment options. Rapid and reliable detection of VRE enables timely implementation of appropriate treatment and infection control measures, important to fighting antimicrobial resistance and to containing HAI.

We designed this range to make it easy for you to access high-quality chromogenic media to help manage the serious healthcare challenges presented by antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated infections HAI. Threat Report ». Skip to main content. Resource Center.