Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus, or ‘golden staph’) bloodstream infections (SABSI) associated with hospital care can be serious, particularly when bacteria are resistant to common antimicrobials.
In 2019–20, all states and territories had public hospital SABSI rates below the national benchmark of 2.0 cases per 10,000 patient days.
Over the past 5 years, the SABSI rate has fluctuated at around 0.7, for instance, 0.74 in 2015–16 and 0.71 in 2019–20.
- Cat. no: HSE 240
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In 2019–20 public hospitals had 1,428 SABSI cases during 20.1 million days of patient care under surveillance
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Nationally, public hospital SABSI rates fluctuated between 0.74–0.71 cases per 10,000 patient days over the past 5 years
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All states and territories had a SABSI rate lower than the national benchmark of 2.0 cases per 10,000 patient days
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83% of public hospital SABSI cases were treatable with commonly used antibiotics