How can vancomycin-resistant enterococci VRE be transmitted?

Transmission of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) can occur through direct contact with colonised or infected patients or through indirect contact via the hands of health-care workers (HCWs), or via contaminated patient care equipment or environmental surfaces.

What is a VRE infection?

Antibiotic resistance occurs when the germs no longer respond to the antibiotics designed to kill them. If these germs develop resistance to vancomycin, an antibiotic that is used to treat some drug-resistant infections, they become vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE).

What does vancomycin-resistant enterococci cause?

VRE can cause many types of infections (for example, bloodstream infection [sepsis], urinary infection, abscesses, wound infections, pneumonia, heart infections [endocarditis], or meningitis).

What drugs are used to treat VRE?

Nitrofurantoin is effective in the treatment of enterococcal UTIs , including many caused by VRE strains. As more experience is gained with the use of linezolid, daptomycin, and tigecycline, these drugs may be used more commonly to treat VRE infections.

What antibiotics are used to treat VRE?

Aminopenicillins can still be an option for ampicillin-sensitive VRE isolates. For VRE infections that cannot be managed with an aminopenicillin, the antibiotics daptomycin, linezolid, and tigecycline are three of the most common therapeutic options to consider.

Can you cure VRE?

VRE doesn’t always need to be treated. If you have enterococci in your body but they’re not causing an active infection, you don’t need treatment. Active VRE infections are treated with an antibiotic that’s not vancomycin.

What are the signs and symptoms of VRE?

People who carry VRE in their intestines and genital tract often don’t show symptoms. If you get sick from VRE, you might have these symptoms: fever. general sick feeling. fast heart rate. redness, swelling, or pain in your body. chills.