Report from the Catalan Agency for Health Technology Assessment (CAHTA). Review of the scientific evidence of the clinical and economic implications of resistance of enterococcus to vancomycin.

Authors' conclusions Due to the world-wide extension of the problem of bacterial resistances Catalonia is one of the areas where vancomycin resistant enterococcus strains have been found and the potential of transmission to meticilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a multiresistant organism which poses a hard-to-solve therapeutical challenge (actually, lowsensitivity strains have been found in Japan and the USA), it is necessaryto control both multiresistant organisms and to prevent the appearance of new resistant strains. The task of making the professional community aware of the crisis implied by the bacterial resistance should not be ended. Continued training may play a very important role in it.