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Article: MRSA - The Monster That Ate Phoenix
Written on 11/6/2007
MRSA is all over the news. Kids in hospitals, notices going home from school, and news reports of this incurable monster.
So, what is MRSA?
MRSA is Methicillin-resistant Staphyococcus aureus. Staph aureus is a bacterium that lives normally on skin and mucus membranes of most (50%) people. Most of the time it lives there harmlessly, except when scratches occur and it makes its way into the skin. At this point you will usually see an infection, either redness or yellow crusting. In most situations, a treatment with an antibiotic (topical or oral) will take care of the situation. Where the Methicillin-resisantant part comes in is if the treatment fails. Then we may have a bacteria that is resistant to the antibiotic (methicillin is an antibiotic).
Is this really a new threat to humanity?
No. It has been around for decades. It used to be confined to hospitals and long-term facilities (it was called hospital–associated MRSA). But nowadays, we see it in patients who have never been in the hospital. (It’s now called community-associated MRSA). This still isn’t all that new. It’s been around for the last 5 or so years.
Why is it around?
While Bacteria usually don’t have college degrees, they are pretty smart. In order to survive, they constantly evolve. With these evolutions, they develop different mechanisms to fight antibiotics. In addition, they transfer this information to other bacteria. So if an E. coli bacterium figures out how to resist amoxicillin, it may pass this information to S. aureous. The only way to combat this is to decrease the amount of antibiotics in the community. Even if your child has never been on an antibiotic, they may still pick up a resistant strain from the park bench. It is like pollution, it doesn’t matter who is ruining the air, we all have to breathe it. Many studies have shown that when the rates of antibiotic use in a country decrease, so does the bacterial resistance.
What do I do?
First, don’t worry needlessly. Good hand washing and good wound care (keep it clean, antibiotic ointment and bandage). If wounds do not heal as you would expect, bring you child into the office so we can treat the infection properly. And make sure you and your friends only use antibiotics when absolutely necessary.