Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a strain of staph that occurs commonly among hospital patients and is proving difficult to treat using traditional antibiotics. Dubbed the hospital superbug, MRSA has shown a steady increase over the last 20 to 30 years and has become an alarming international problem.

“MRSA infections are usually mild superficial skin infections that can be treated successfully with proper skin care and antibiotics. MRSA, however, can be difficult to treat and can progress to life-threatening blood or bone infections because there are fewer effective antibiotics available for treatment…It’s completely resistant to all the penicillin-related antibiotics and to many other classes of antibiotics. Anyone who spends time in a hospital is familiar with MRSA,” says Dr. Dan Jernigen, medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Staph bacteria can benignly exist in the skin and nose of many healthy people who will never feel its occasionally lethal effects. MRSA is not an airborne infection but almost always spreads through close contact with infected people or by touching towels, sheets, wound dressings, clothes, workout areas or sports equipment contaminated by infected skin.

Sick people, those with wounds or a weakened immune system, people recovering from surgery, diabetics or those suffering from dermatitis or broken skin conditions, are most vulnerable to infection.

According to Dr. Jernigan, MRSA infections aren’t confined to the hospital setting, but are showing up in previously uninfected community-based environments “…as a predominant cause of skin disease among children in some regions of the country, as clusters of abscesses among sports participants, as the most common cause of skin infections among inmates in some jails and among military recruits. And rarely, as a severe and sometimes fatal lung or bloodstream infection in previously healthy people.”

Several factors, such as crowding, contact, compromised skin, contaminated surfaces and shared items and lack of cleanliness, appear to contribute to transmission.

Fortunately, the community strain, which can cause a fatal form of pneumonia, appears to respond to several alternative oral antibiotics. Unfortunately, however, doctors routinely mistake the resulting abscesses for spider bites. Studies suggest that up to 70% of patients with community-associated MRSA were initially prescribed an inadequate form of medication.

“Doctors need to do more culturing of skin infections and may have to routinely use alternative antibiotics as part of a broad strategy for controlling community-associated MRSA,” says Dr. Jernigan.

Put a Stop to Staph

You can help prevent the spread of an MRSA infection by following these steps:

• Keep infections, particularly those that drain or produce pus, covered with clean dry bandages. Follow your healthcare provider’s instructions regarding proper care of the wound. Pus from infected wounds can contain MRSA and spread the bacteria to others.
• Advise your family and other close contacts to wash their hands frequently with soap and warm water, especially if they change your bandages or touch the infected wound or potentially infectious materials. Hand-washing is one of the most important things you can do.
• Avoid sharing personal items that may have had contact with the infected wound and potentially infectious material. Wash linens and clothes that become soiled in hot water and laundry detergent. Drying clothes in a hot dryer, rather than air-drying, also helps kill bacteria in clothing.
• Tell your healthcare providers that you have an antibiotic-resistant staph infection.

“It’s not clear why we are now seeing an increasing number of community-associated MRSA infections,” says Dr. Jernigan. “However, the broad and often unnecessary use of antibiotics in the community may be one contributing factor.”