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To the Editor: In a recent epidemic of staphylococcal infections in the newborn nurseries at The Ohio State University Hospital, a single strain of Staphylococcus pyogenes, phage type 42B/47C/44A/52, was found to be responsible for all lesions. A report of this epidemic is to be published in Pediatrics (Shaffer, T. E.; Baldwin, J. N.; Rheins, M. S., and Sylvester, R. L., Jr.: Staphylococcal Infections in Newborn Infants: I. A Study of an Epidemic Among Infants and Nursing Mothers).
We have had opportunities to study organisms responsible for similar epidemics among newborns and nursing mothers in Portsmouth and Lancaster, Ohio; Lepeer, Mich.; Seattle; Hartford, Wis., and Philadelphia and have found that in every instance S. pyogenes phage type 42B/47C/44A/52 was responsible. This suggests that epidemics of this sort in newborn nurseries may be a disease entity caused by a single strain of S. pyogenes.
In all but one instance the strains