Getting facts on MRSA
12/3/2007
Stony Brook forum helps separate truth from myths about staph infection on rise in community settings
Even though reports of MRSA infections have nearly disappeared from the news, they haven't vanished from reality, say specialists in infectious diseases who study and treat a wide range of microbial threats.
At a recent community forum on Long Island, experts from Stony Brook University Medical Center separated MRSA facts from an ever-growing compendium of myths. They were asked dozens of questions, some of which seemed straight from Ripley's Believe It Or Not: An audience member asked whether a gym could truthfully bill itself as MRSA-free. Answer: No.
MRSA - shorthand for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - refers to drug-resistant bacteria that long have been been a concern in hospitals, where weakened patients are affected. Doctors often struggle against the microbe because it can repel a wide range of potent antibiotics. In recent years, MRSA has become a source of infections in schools, gyms, jails, even day-care centers.
Several pages on the Web site of the Infectious Diseases Society of America are devoted to otherwise healthy people who contracted MRSA in community settings and died as a result.
Stony Brook doctors held the forum because recent statistics are as alarming as the myths.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed in October that in 2005 there were 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths, establishing the first national baseline for assessing future trends in invasive MRSA infections. But a study last week in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, using different statistical methods, suggested hospitalizations related to MRSA more than doubled, from 127,000 to nearly 280,000, between 1999 and 2005.
The doctors offered context and reassurances.
"It's not a bug," said Dr. Susan V. Donelan, a specialist in adult infectious diseases, during a presentation that showed a slide of an exterminator in a school locker room. Dressed in a hazmat suit, the MRSA-buster appeared ready to hunt and spray hordes of germ-ridden cockroaches.
Donelan provided a reminder: We live in a microbial world. Microbes of all kind are ubiquitous.
She and Dr. Sharon Nachman, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, noted that although outrageous advertising claims and calls to exterminators appear to be growing, the best defense against MRSA remains simple hand hygiene.
It's more difficult to become infected with MRSA, they said, than with the flu virus, which spreads through a cough or sneeze.
"MRSA does not spread through the air, but rather through contact from infected skin lesions, nasal discharge or from hands," Donelan said, adding that it can be spread from such personal items as towels, razors, combs and clothing.
A few years ago there were numerous reports on Long Island of bites from the sometimes-deadly recluse spider. But in retrospect, Donelan said, what appeared to be spider bites were probably MRSA infections, signs the bacteria were spreading in communities.
Nachman, who has treated MRSA infections in youngsters ranging from infants to teens, showed slides of active infections. She said MRSA sometimes can be difficult to fight.
One slide showed impetigo, a rash-like staph infection typified by weeping lesions with honey-colored crusting. "Your skin should always be soft and supple," she said, emphasizing that extraordinary measures are not needed to maintain healthy skin and reiterating her stance on soap and water.
Microbiologist Jorge Benach, another panelist, noted that being colonized by the bacteria does not amount to an infection. In other words, some people may be carriers unaffected by the germ.
Delthia Ricks
NewsDay Inc
delthia.ricks@newsday.com
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