MRSA Notes

At the end of pre-season training, MRSA has reared its ugly head among several Harvard varsity football players. Symptoms ranged from rashes to larger boils requiring hospitalization:

“The guy who had it before me got it on his calf and it sort of swelled up. I got it on my foot and it swelled up to the point where I couldn’t walk and I had to be hospitalized for a few days,” he said.

Harvard has apparently been proactive through the outbreak (yep, I’m calling it an outbreak):

“I’ve been going through a pretty intense ordeal. The school had me…put into separate housing. They were pretty aggressive with treating [the infection] and making sure that other people didn’t get it,” McLeod said.

And a good reminder for any athletic group:

“[Risk] is attributed to close physical contact of the sort you get while playing sports and…sharing things within a locker-room – anything from towels or any type of cloth that might be used to wipe sweat off,” he said.

Pier also did not rule out the notion–advanced by the New England Journal of Medicine in a 2003 study of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams–that artificial turf fields of the sort recently installed in Harvard Stadium could enhance the likelihood of infection.

I am glad to hear the athletes are doing well, and that Harvard is doing what is necessary to keep their atheletes out of harm’s way. I hope they will continue the diligence!

Source: The Harvard Crimson

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