• Polymicrobial bacteraemia and fungaemia in England, Wales and Northern
  Ireland: 2010

 

Polymicrobial bacteraemia and fungaemia in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland: 2010

Episodes of polymicrobial bloodstream infection are defined as the isolation of two or more different organisms from the same blood culture which are clinically significant. These analyses – for specimens collected in 2010 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland – are based on data extracted from the HPA’s voluntary surveillance database (on 7 December, 2011). The data presented here differ in some instances from data in earlier publications due to the addition of late reports to the database.

• 92,899 patient episodes involving either bacteraemia and/or fungaemia were identified from all reports received from laboratories in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2010 (see table). This represented a 0.6% increase on the number of patient episodes recorded in 2006 (92,356 episodes) but a decline compared to 2007, 2008 and 2009 (100,976, 95,967 and 94,206 patient episodes, respectively);
• Based on positive blood cultures reported in 2010, 7,548 patient episodes (8.1% of all patient episodes) were identified as polymicrobial and 85,351 were identified as monomicrobial;
• The percentage of all patient episodes considered as polymicrobial infections peaked in 2007 (9.3%) and has been declining slowly since then (8.8% in 2008 to 8.1% in 2010);
• The most frequently reported organism involved in polymicrobial infections was Escherichia species (see table);
• The most frequently reported monomicrobial bloodstream infections were also caused by an Escherichia species.
  

Ten most frequently reported genera/organisms in polymicrobial and monomicrobial bacteraemic episodes, 2010*

Rank	Polymicrobial	Rank	Monomicrobials
1	Escherichia	1	Escherichia
2	Staphylococcus, coagulase negative	2	Staphylococcus, coagulase negative
3	Enterococcus	3	Staphylococcus aureus
4	Streptococcus, non-pyogenic	4	Streptococcus, non-pyogenic
5	Klebsiella	5	Klebsiella
6	Staphylococcus aureus	6	Streptococcus, pyogenic
7	Pseudomonas	7	Enterococcus
8	Coliform	8	Pseudomonas
9	Proteus	9	Proteus
10	Enterobacter	10	Enterobacter

* Data extracted 7 December 2011

 

Regional distribution of polymicrobial bacteraemia/fungaemia episodes (per 100,000 population) in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland: 2010*
* Data extracted 7 December 2011

Regional distribution

• The overall rate of polymicrobial episodes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is 13.23 per 100,000 population (see figure).  By country, the reported rates (per 100,000 population) were 13.60, 7.95 and 11.50 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively. The rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are slightly lower compared to data for 2009 (14.84 for England; 8.97 for Wales; and 14.65 for Northern Ireland), although both point estimates for Wales and Northern Ireland have relatively wide confidence intervals;
• Within England, the lowest rate of polymicrobial episodes was recorded for the East England (8.85 per 100,000), while the highest rates was recorded for London (16.74 per 100,000).

 

Further information

Polymicrobial bacteraemias and fungaemias in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. HPA website: Infections A-Z › Bacteraemia › Epidemiological data › Voluntary surveillance ›
Polymicrobial bacteraemias and fungaemias.