MRSA Notes

Just barely more than a week after classes have officially gotten under way at Stang High School in Massachusetts, 2 confirmed cases of MRSA and one unconfirmed case have appeared among their male student athletes.

Mrs. Dougall [the principal] said letters were sent home Tuesday to the parents of the school’s male and female athletes and both locker rooms were closed; a professional cleaning service was hired to clean and sanitize them.
“It seemed isolated to the male locker room, but we cleaned them both as a precaution,” she said.

My hope is that next year, the locker rooms will be thoroughly cleaned the students BEFORE the students begin using them, and very, very regularly during the school year.

School officials have aggressively attacked the problem.
In addition to cleaning the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms, all school-owned sports equipment has been professionally cleaned, she said.
Mrs. Dougall said she hasn’t seen a bill and doesn’t know the cost of the cleanup. But with students’ health at stake, “it’s something we would obviously do,” she said.
All fall sports athletes were asked to take home their personal equipment, and they received instructions on how to properly clean the items.

The time is now to learn proper care of your facilities and your equipment if you are a school, athletic facility or a participant in athletics. This is far too dangerous of a bug to wait until there is a problem before you act, and MRSA is so much easier to prevent than to destroy.

Source: SouthCoastToday.com

CA MRSA, Infection Prevention, Massachusetts, MRSA, MRSA in Children, MRSA in Schools/Athletics, MRSA in the U.S.

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