Report (1966-1970) of the Subcommittee on Phage-Typing of Staphylococci to the International Committee on Nomenclature of Bacteria: 13 August 1970

This report describes the work of the Subcommittee during the years 1966-1970 and includes a summary of the decisions taken at its 5th meeting, which was held in Mexico City on 6 August 1970. 1. Membership and officers. The Subcommittee consists of a Chairman, a Secretary, 43 representatives of national staphylococcus phage-typing laboratories, and two co-opted members. E. H. Asheshov replaced M. T. Parker as Secretary in August 1970. The full list of the present membership is as follows: L. Arcalis, Barcelona, Spain; A. Arseni, Athens, Greece; E. H. Asheshov, London, England; J. Beumer, Brussels, Belgium; H. Brandis, Bonn, Germany; E. T. Cetin, Istanbul, Turkey; Chang, Chendu, Szechwan, China; Doki Chun, Taegu, Republic of Korea; Vu Qui Dai, Saigon, South Vietnam; Ian Davidson, New Haw, Weybridge, Surrey, England; J-M. Fouace, Paris, France; T. H. Fuh, Taipei, Taiwan, Formosa; Y. A. El Batawi, Cairo, Egypt; R. Gharagozloo, Teheran, Iran; H. K. Ghosh, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; M. Grigorova, Sofia, Bulgaria; W. Harris, Ottawa, Canada; Y. Hermon, Colombo, Ceylon; K. Ishihara, Maebashi, Japan; L. 0. Kallings, Stockholm, Sweden; H. T. Knights, Wellington, S. I., New Zealand; H. J. Koornhof, Johannesburg, South Africa; S. Kryhski, Gdahsk, Poland; A. M. Marquez, Montevideo, Uruguay, V. Mat Gjovska, Prague, Czechoslovakia ; W. Mey er, Wernigerode, Germany; H. Milch, Budapest, Hungary; M. Moreira-Jacob, Lisbon, Portugal; P. Oeding, Bergen, Norway; V. Ortali, Rome, Italy; M. T. Parker, London, England; M. Popovici, Bucharest, Romania; 1. Rantasalo, Helsinki, Fin1and;B. Ghosh Ray, New Delhi, India; H. Reber, Basel, Switzerland; H. Rische, Wernigerode, Germany; M. Rodriguez-Leiva, Santiago, Chile; K. Rosendal, Copenhagen, Denmark; P. M. Rountree, Camperdown, N.S.W., Australia (Chairman); L. E. Sanchez-Torres, Mexico City, Mexico; L. S . Saubert de Allegroni, Buenos Aires, Argentina; R. Th. Scholtens, Utrecht, The Netherlands; R. Skalova, Zagreb, Yugoslavia; P. Byrd Smith, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; D. Sompolinsky, TelAviv, Israel; and G. Vygodchikov, Moscow, USSR. The Staphylococcus Reference Laboratory at the Central Public Health Laboratory, Colindale, London, NW9, England, acts as WHO International Centre for Staphylococcus PhageTyping. 2. International standardization. For many years the International Centre has at stated intervals provided fresh stocks of the typing phages and their propagating strains t o each national laboratory. I t is the responsibility of the national laboratories t o propagate these phages and issue them to other workers in their respective countries. Until recently, the determination of the lytic spectrum of the propagated phages on a series of test staphylococci (1) provided the main check on the host-range of the phages. Since 1969, however, high-titer preparations of the basic set of phages have been issued. The colltents of one ampoule can be used not only for propagation but also to provide a reference standard for the lytic spectrum of the locally prepared phage. It is therefore now possible t o decide whether a deviation from the accepted lytic spectrum is due t o variation in the phage (or in its propagating strain or in the test strains) or t o differences in the medium used in two laborat ories. Since 1952, international comparative tests of phage-typing have been carried out every 4 years. These tests proved t o be a valuable means of drawing attention t o discrepancies between the results of typing in different laboratories but gave little indication of their cause. Analysis of the results of the 5th Comparative Test ( 1969) suggested, however, that differences in the carrying out of the typing test rather than in the specificity of the phages used were the main source of discrepancies. At the same time, investigations at the International Centre suggested that the susceptibility of some staphylococcal strains to lysis by the typing phages was influenced by small differences in the composition of the typing