The Superbug- MRSA part 1

In the last decade, there has been almost daily news about MRSA or methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreaks all over the country. The media hype about this infection has created hysteria among both health care professionals and the public.

There have been reports that this bug has caused deaths in other wise healthy individuals and many hospitals have had to close down operating rooms. If so, what is this Superbug; is it that bad and how does one acquire it?

MRSA is caused by the bacteria, staphylococcus or sometimes called staph. About 2 decades ago, a strain of staphylococcus surfaced in hospitals that was very resistant to many antibiotics that were designed to kill it. This led to its name- methicillin resistant staphylococcus or MRSA. MRSA is generally a harmless organism but can also cause serious infections in individuals who are hospitalized. It is also very resistant to most antibiotics, except vancomycin. In the last 7 years, many strains of staphylococcus have also started to show resistance to vancomycin.

For the better part of the past two decades, MRSA was predominantly a hospital based organism; this is not true anymore. MRSA is now widely found in the community. These community associated MRSA do differ slightly from the hospitals strains but can also cause serious skin, soft tissue infections and pneumonias. Most patients who do acquire MRSA in the community have no idea how they acquired the organism.