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Staphylococcus schleiferi is a coagulase-negative staphylococcus infrequently reported as a human pathogen. We report a case of prosthetic valve endocarditis attributed to this organism, contrast it to another Staphylococcus species that gives similar clumping factor results (S. lugdunensis), and propose a simple, effective identification scheme for identification of clumping factor-positive staphylococci.

Western Australia (WA) has been able to prevent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains from outside of the state from becoming established in its hospitals. Recently, a single-strain outbreak of MRSA occurred in a WA metropolitan teaching hospital following admission of an infected patient from a remote community. The strain responsible for the outbreak was unrelated to any imported strains and spread rapidly in the hospital. Screening of two remote communities in the region from which the index case came revealed that 42% of the people in one community and 24% in the other carried MRSA. Isolates were typed by resistance pattern, plasmid analysis, contour-clamped homogeneous electric field electrophoresis, bacteriophage pattern, and coagulase gene restriction fragment length polymorphism. It was found that of the people carrying MRSA, 39% in the former community and 17% in the latter community were carrying an MRSA strain which was indistinguishable from the strain that caused the hospital outbreak.

Staphylococcus lugdunensis is being increasingly reported as a pathogen with an outcome resembling that of S. aureus rather than coagulase-negative staphylococci. Recent local isolates exhibited colonial variation that delayed identification and interpretation of clinical significance. Until now previous descriptions have not emphasized colonial variation as an important identifying characteristic of S. lugdunensis.