That's the trouble with MRSA, a kid just thinks it's a sore and then it develops into sepsis.
A friend of mine has a son who contracted MRSA last year while he was in college (he was part of a wrestling program at a college in PA.) Luckily the coach recognized the sore on the kids leg as something that should be checked out and it was caught early and cleared up with IV antibiotics.
In New Hampshire, it’s in the high schools, and a 4-yr old girl died of it recently.
Calm down, folks. The uninformed media has really turned this into a hysteria. MRSA (methicillin resistant staph. aureus) is very prevalent. I see it every day over a dozen times in my busy emergency department. Having MRSA does NOT mean that it’s untreatable. It ain’t the plague! The majority of MRSA cases are succeptible to the following antibiotics that have existed for ages:
Tetracycline, Doxycycline
Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim DS)
Rifampin
Clindamycin
These big guns IV antibiotics are also commonly used:
Vancomycin
Daptomycin (Cubicin)
Zyvox
Bactroban (mupirocin), a topical ointment/cream, is often used and applied intranasally for treatment of carriers.
The majority of Community Acquired MRSA cases are in the form of cutaneous abscesses that can be easily treated. The treatment for these is adequate incision and drainage, proper wound care (sterile whirlpool is necessary in some severe cases), and antibiotics.
More serious cases such as sepsis due to MRSA pneumonia do exist but overall, death secondary to MRSA is rare.
As for any other disease, early recognition is key to the treatment of MRSA. It is so ubiquitous these days that clinicians will assume that an infected wound/sore/abscess is MRSA and treated as such until proven otherwise. So if you get a little sore, don’t let it fester into a huge abscess. Get it looked at and treated early. And if you keep on getting recurrent sores, you’ll need to be treated as a carrier and so does the rest of the family. Additionally your home (or work environment, etc.) needs to me sanitized (steam cleaning the carpet, wipe down commonly touched areas and floors with antiseptic cleaners, wash hands often with antibacterial soaps, ect...). Hygiene is key!
The national average for MRSA cases seen in the hospital setting is roughly 7%. At the hospital where I work at, it’s ~9.5%.
The staph has always been there. The knowledge of its presence has spread.
Ping.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!