New, invasive staph strain a growing school threat

[shrekjr]

Doctors said what's made the issue important to schools is that the new strains of staph have moved from hospitals into the community. And some are more resistant to antibiotic treatment.

Locker rooms are a notorious breeding ground. Staph bacteria can cause infections through open wounds or other breaks in the skin. The easiest way to transmit it is through skin-to-skin contact or by sharing items that come into close contact with skin, such as towels, bar soap and sports equipment.

Sports such as football, lacrosse and wrestling often involve players who have cuts or abrasions. A locker room culture of sharing soap or towels, or in some cases, not showering at all, can spread the infection.

A new, more invasive strain of staph is called methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The medical community refers to this strain as "community-acquired" because it's being contracted outside hospitals.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/100607dnmetstaph.28ecc38.html

[jayjaciv]

Ah, another local news scare tactic on a year-old story that won't affect you unless you act like Pigpen. Refreshing.

[peterwho]

Ah, another local news scare tactic on a year-old story that won't affect you unless you act like Pigpen. Refreshing.

So, if I cited the current issue of Reader's Digest, would you take this more seriously?

http://www.rd.com/content/methicillin-resistant-staphylococcus-aureus

People are bent out of shape about bird flu, but CA-MRSA is already here and, in my opinion, ranks second only to HIV as a public health threat," Dr. Chambers says. "The drugs we've relied on to treat common infections no longer work. And if we're not smart about using the few weapons we have left, this superbug will definitely morph again, to become resistant to even more antibiotics.

The irony of your comment and the parallel from Dr. Chambers is excellent. Do you also belive that AIDS/HIV is a 30-year old story and "I'm not Gay, so why should I care?!!".

MRSA is so widespread that 2.3 million Americans carry the bacteria in their noses without symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2006. CA-MRSA carriers can infect others, or suddenly become ill themselves if the bacteria burrow past the body's defenses. Any break in the skin's protective barrier -- a razor nick, a scratch, even nose picking (which may injure nasal passages) -- can set the stage for a staph infection.

Thank goodness we have Brittany, Lindsay and Paris to distract us...

[jayjaciv]

I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it but it's just annoying. The story keeps popping up every six months or so when there's nothing better to talk about. There is a way to stop it, but the CDC won't require it for some reason I can't fathom.

In the 1980s, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands faced similarly soaring rates of M.R.S.A., but nearly eradicated it. How? By screening patients and requiring health care workers treating patients with M.R.S.A. to wear gowns and gloves and use dedicated equipment to prevent the spread. The Dutch called their strategy “search and destroy.”

A growing number of hospitals in the United States have proved that such precautions work here, too. Recently, a pilot program using screening at Presbyterian University Hospital, in Pittsburgh, reduced M.R.S.A. infections by 90 percent. At a Yale-affiliated hospital in New Haven, screening reduced M.R.S.A. infections in intensive care by two-thirds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/opinion/14mccaughey.html

And everybody who's taken biology knows that if you treat a virus with the same class of drugs consistently for 50 years it's eventually going to develop a resistance; the only scary part is this random new expression that causes staph to release a toxin that makes WBC's lyse.
Of course I don't blame these doctors for trying to drum up support for funding for their jobs but there is a consistent dumbing down and misrepresentation of the issue in the media that bothers me.

I think if we're going to get bent out of shape about health care, it should be something like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21111931/

And I thought Magic cured AIDS? Unless Kanye was lying...

[peterwho]

I think the difference is that you describe the institutional strain associated with hospitals vs. the more recent articles which describe a unique, potentially more virulent, strain occurring in the "real world" - often to children and, more importantly to this board, young athletes.

And I thought Magic cured AIDS? Unless Kanye was lying...

Ah yes, I stand corrected.

[Jana]

A good friend who was a 2 time olympian in 2000 and 1996 contracted this staph infection, he was fortunate to be in Seattle because he got first class treatment at the local university hospital - but it still nearly killed him. The CDC flew in special drugs for him, he spent 10 days in a coma and took nearly a year to recover. During that time span, I think there were 6 others in the area who got sick, and 4 did not survive.

This is serious, everyone needs to be more careful, wipe down equipment, clean up scrapes, wash hands, etc. Some of the turf stadiums won't allow anything but simple water drinks onto the fields, because the sticky gatoraid varieties help staph survive until someone else slides into the turf.

[shrekjr]

Ah, another local news scare tactic on a year-old story that won't affect you unless you act like Pigpen. Refreshing.

BEDFORD, Va. - A high school student who was hospitalized for more than a week with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection has died, and officials shut down 21 schools for cleaning to keep the illness from spreading.

Guess this is just another scare tactic too.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21324612/