MRSA Notes

Infection Control Today recognizes something different about the MRSA that is showing up in our communities and is encouraging medical staff to pay attention, to culture all wounds and test for drug sensitivities before choosing a treatment.

“The other thing that’s interesting about this organism is that we don’t understand the role of the environment, but we know it’s important,” Perl continues. She points to a study from the New England Journal of Medicine describing an MRSA outbreak among members of the St. Louis Rams football team as illustration.1 Perl says pushing for improved hygiene will be important in combating CAMRSA, as will taking the focus off of treatment with Mupirocin.

They also note the Portland, OR St. Vincent Medical Center who has noticed the environmental relationship to the spread of MRSA in their communities:

So when we looked at the first 10 patients that we saw, I and another colleague found that we were seeing these primarily in meth amphetamine users.” A common characteristic of this type of population involves a large number of people sharing a relatively small living space. “I notified the county health department that this is what we were seeing and then they took a look at their clientele in which they were starting to see the same thing, and they also found that it was linked to behavioral health issues with drug use. Those were our first cases that we saw and from there it’s certainly gone on to spread out into a much larger segment of the population.”

All in all, this is a very interesting article, and not too much for the average person to comprehend. I am very thankful that there are people out there who are seeing and watching these trends, it renews my faith that they are working hard to fight MRSA.

Infection Control Today, MRSA, MRSA in the U.S., Oregon, Research and Development, Superbugs

Share This