MRSA Notes

JournalStar.com
Physicians and health care workers around Lincoln have recently begun to notice a rising number of problematic skin infections.

The cause is the age-old staphylococcus aureus but with a twist.

Usually called staph, the bacteria is commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of about one in four healthy people. A common cause of skin infections, like pimples and boils, it occasionally results in serious blood infections and pneumonia. It can kill.

Dr. Suzanne Vandenhul of Antelope Creek Family Physicians first began noticing unusual skin infections two years ago.

As it starts, “It looks like a spider bite,” she said. Today, anybody coming to her office complaining of a spider bite is likely to be checked for something called methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. It’s typically referred to as MRSA (pronounced mer-sa).

It’s not a new organism. It’s staph. The difference is that it doesn’t die in the presence of the beta-lactam class of antibiotics, which includes penicillin, amoxicillin and methicillin.

In hospitals, MRSA is a clear danger to those with weakened immune systems. Even when it doesn’t kill, it lengthens patient stays and raises costs.

Increasingly, MRSA has been found outside of health-care settings. It began on the coasts and spread inward.

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