Regional variation in community bacteremia pathogens in British Columbia, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Bloodstream infections are a significant cause of community morbidity and mortality, and their microbiological patterns can vary regionally. In British Columbia, the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island represent two major population centres with distinct demographic and exposure characteristics. Analysis of community blood culture data provides an opportunity to identify geographic differences in bloodstream pathogens and monitor regional antimicrobial resistance trends over time. Methods: Blood culture data collected by LifeLabs British Columbia from 2020 to 2024 were analyzed, encompassing 744 community isolates: 620 from the Lower Mainland and 124 from Vancouver Island. Organisms were identified, and antimicrobial susceptibility results were compared between the two regions to assess regional variation in bloodstream infection patterns. Results: Of all isolates, 62% were Gram-positive and 37% were Gram-negative; yeast accounted for 1% of isolates and were not analyzed further. In the Lower Mainland, Salmonella species (41% of gram-negative isolates) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) (32% of Gram-negative isolates) were the predominant Gram-negative organisms, whereas E. coli was most common on Vancouver Island (35% of Gram-negative isolates). Overall, Staphylococcus aureus (11%) and viridans group Streptococcus (22%) were the most frequently isolated Gram-positive organisms. Salmonella species and E. coli demonstrated reduced ciprofloxacin susceptibility (0% and 60%, respectively), while Salmonella remained universally susceptible to ceftriaxone (100%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (100%). Conclusion: This analysis provides region-specific surveillance data describing the distribution and antimicrobial susceptibility of community bloodstream pathogens in British Columbia. The identification of Salmonella predominance in the Lower Mainland and reduced ciprofloxacin susceptibility among E. coli highlights the importance of ongoing provincial surveillance. These findings contribute to a better understanding of regional epidemiology and inform infection control and antimicrobial resistance monitoring initiatives in community health settings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".