MRSA
- What is it?
A health hazard that was little known just a few years ago but is now becoming increasingly common is MRSA. MRSA is the acronym for methicillin-resistant (or multiple antibiotic-resistant) Staphylococcus aureus. Odds are you just recently heard of MRSA, although you may recall hearing references to a “superbug” wreaking havoc in British hospitals a few years back. That superbug was MRSA, and it’s now turning up more and more often in America.
Experts worry that this serious illness may soon become much more common. In the large modern hospital where I live, it is quite a problem and I have been told by patients I know personally that they cancelled their surgeries for fear of being infected with MRSA.
So what is MRSA? Let’s start with regular Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as staph. Staph is the name given to a group of bacteria that is quite common to all of us and usually relatively benign.
Between one-quarter and one-third of the people in the world (and most likely many more), some two billion, carry staph in their nose or throat, or on their skin. Most of the time it’s completely harmless, although it is a common cause of skin problems, such as pimples and boils.
In hospitals and other medical facilities, however, staph is more worrisome. It can lead to serious infections of the bloodstream and the urinary tract, pneumonia, endocarditis, meningitis, toxic shock syndrome, and even death. Over half a million hospital patients contract serious staph infections during their stay every year in this country. It’s one of the biggest health risks of going to a hospital.
But for the vast majority of people who aren’t in a medical facility, ordinary staph is usually quite harmless, and when it does cause problems, it can be successfully treated with common antibiotics.
MRSA is different—it is a strain of staph that has become resistant to the penicillin family of antibiotics, even methicillin, one of the most powerful antibiotics. Still, most cases of MRSA are fairly mild, causing a pimple or boil which may be very sore and contain pus. But it often leads to severe illness in victims, which can result in amputations,and can even be fatal.
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