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OSLO, Norway – Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner. Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked. The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cases of a drug-resistant bacterial infection known as MRSA have risen by 90 percent since 1999, and they are increasingly being acquired outside hospitals, researchers reported on Tuesday. They found two new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- MRSA for short -- were circulating in patients and they are different from the strains normally seen in hospitals. Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues studied data on lab tests from a national network of 300 microbiology laboratories in the United States for their study. "We found during 1999-2006 that the percentage of S. aureus...

Nov. 2, 2009 (Philadelphia) -- A newly discovered strain of drug-resistant staph bacteria is five times more deadly than other strains, a new study suggests. Adding insult to injury, the new superbug appears to have some resistance to the antibiotic commonly used to treat it, researchers report. Half of patients infected with the new strain of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) died within 30 days, says Carol Moore, PharmD, a research investigator in infectious diseases at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. That compares to only about 10% of patients infected with other MRSA strains, she tells WebMD. Moore and colleagues studied...

The potential of the threat from the new strain of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium, which is becoming more widespread, is outlined in a study in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. Known as community acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA), it poses a significant risk outside hospitals.

Manuka honey may kill bacteria by destroying key bacterial proteins. Dr Rowena Jenkins and colleagues from the University of Wales Institute - Cardiff investigated the mechanisms of manuka honey action and found that its anti-bacterial properties were not due solely to the sugars present in the honey. The work was presented this week (7-10 September), at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was grown in the laboratory and treated with and without manuka honey for four hours. The experiment was repeated with sugar syrup to determine if the effects seen were...

URGENT PRAYERS NEEDED - DAUGHTER ON RESPIRATOR, NOW HAS MRSA. My daughter, Stephanie, is on a respirator and nasal feeding tube in the ICU at our local hospital. She was admitted to the hospital on 06/07/2009, after having a seizure that lasted over an hour. She had several shorter ones back-to-back after admission. We were told today that she now has MRSA. I have written about her before. She is a severely mentally and physically disabled 24 year old, who does not walk, talk, or feed herself. She wears diapers and has a very rare type of dwarfism, so she...

A new strain of MRSA seems to be triggering a deadly form of pneumonia in people who catch flu, experts say.

A member of the House gym has been diagnosed with MRSA — a much-feared, antibiotic-resistant bacteria — and the facility has been scrubbed to eliminate the possibility that anyone will become infected. h/t John Bresnahan The (edited) memo from administrators at the House fitness center: On Monday, 4/13, the HSFC was informed by a HSFC patron that they had tested positive for MRSA. This patron was requested to refrain fromusing the facility until all drainage has stopped and only after then with the area completely bandaged and covered with clothing. The patron informed the HSFC staff that they would not...

"The strain of a once-innocuous staph infection that has become invulnerable to first-line antibiotics kills more people each year than the AIDS virus and in most cases is contracted in hospitals. ...SB 1058 will require hospitals to report infections such as MRSA to the Department of Health Services, effective Jan. 1."

Just over a year ago, the media provided just enough information (mostly incorrect) about a "deadly new bacteria" called MRSA to send our nation into a tizzy. But before you panic over the most recent report of a MRSA outbreak in a Tennessee school, let me remind the reader of this immutable truth: THE. MEDIA. ARE. IDIOTS. DO. NOT. TRUST. THEM.(I mean, if you don't trust the media to provide honest coverage about Obama, what on earth makes you think that they are going to give you the truth about MRSA? These dillweeds don't care about you; they care about...

An East Tennessee High School is dealing with two confirmed cases of the drug resistant Staph infection known as MRSA. The school is still open but some family members still have their concerns. The cases of MRSA are considered isolated and no students are considered at risk. Both confirmed cases are of teachers but school officials are still taking extra precaution to try and protect students from getting MRSA. Jessica Sharp is one of many concerned family members in Union County, after hearing word of MRSA cases at Union County High School. "It’s not just only the students that would...

MRSA, a drug-resistant germ, lurks in Washington hospitals, carried by patients and staff and fueled by inconsistent infection control. This stubborn germ is spreading here at an alarming rate, but no one has tracked these cases -- until now. Year after year, the number of victims climbed. But even as casualties mounted -- as the germ grew stronger and spread inside hospitals-- the toll remained hidden from the public, and hospitals ignored simple steps to control the threat. Over the past decade, the number of Washington hospital patients infected with a frightening, antibiotic-resistant germ called MRSA has skyrocketed from 141...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Two experimental antibiotics from the United States and Switzerland show promising results in fighting the methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) superbug, researchers said. US pharmaceutical Paratek said on Sunday a new class of antibiotic it has developed called PTK 0896 was 98 percent efficient in countering MRSA -- 5.0 percent more efficient than rival Pfizer's Zyvox drug -- according to its phase ii clinical trial on 234 patients, Switzerland's bio-pharmaceutical company Arpida said its Iclaprim drug administered intravenously was able to cure MRSA infection in 92.3 percent of patients. Arpida recently submitted Iclaprim to approval by the US...

A potentially fatal infection may be spreading to more students than ever before, but few school and county officials are tracking it. Sometimes called the “superbug,” methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a drug-resistant strain of staph infections that can be deadly if left untreated. While concerns about the blood-borne bacterial infection were once relegated to hospitals or the occasional locker room, reports of the infections continue to rise in schools across the country. “We’ve been seeing what we call the community-acquired strain of MRSA since 2001,” said Registered Nurse Sean O’Grady, who works in the St. Mary Medical Center...

Protecting Yourself From Nasty Superbugs: Suggestions From Mayo Clinic ScienceDaily (June 23, 2008) — Superbugs -- bacteria that are resistant to many commonly used antibiotics -- can seem scary. Antibiotic resistance means illnesses last longer, and the risk of complications and death increases. Many factors have contributed to the emergence of superbugs, including overuse and misuse of antibiotics. One superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has been a problem in health care settings for years. In this environment, the bacteria is spread from one patient to another via the hands of care providers or by contaminated equipment. Increasingly, MRSA is appearing...

LONDON (Reuters) - Disinfectant wipes routinely used in hospitals may actually spread drug-resistant bacteria rather than kill the dangerous infections, British researchers said on Tuesday. While the wipes killed some bacteria, a study of two hospitals showed they did not get them all and could transfer the so-called superbugs to other surfaces, Gareth Williams, a microbiologist at Cardiff University, said. The findings presented at the American Society of Microbiology's General Meeting in Boston focused on bacteria that included methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. "What we have found is there is a high risk," Williams, who led the study, said by...

MRSA from farm animals found in humans in UK for first time By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 12:51AM BST 03/06/2008 Three people have been infected with a form of MRSA usually found in pigs, the first time any humans in Britain have been infected by an animal strain of the superbug. The variation has been found in farm animals and humans on the Continent, causing serious heart, bone, blood and skin diseases, as well as pneumonia. Dr Giles Edwards, the director of the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory, said three people in Scotland had contracted the strain, known...

Every day on Free Republic, there is one poster who goes to every single prayer site, and prays for all requests and needs. That poster is pandoraou812. She has prayed for hundreds of prayer needs. Today, Pandy needs OUR prayers. Her doctor called her an hour ago (on SUNDAY), and told her that the swab he took on her 'spider bite' last Thursday was positive for MRSA. (She feels that she may have been infected when she had a liver biopsy for Hepatitis C March 5.) The 'spider bite' appeared three days later. Please pray for her and her family...

SEATTLE — The King County Jail had 65...

The number of deaths linked with hospital superbug Clostridium difficile has soared in England and Wales, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. Between 2005 and 2006 the number of death certificates which mentioned the infection rose by 72 per cent to 6,480. Elderly people were most at risk from the bacteria, which caused more than 55,000 infections in NHS hospitals last year. It is thought that some of the increase may be due to more complete reporting on death certificates, but there has been a fiftyfold increase in C. difficile infections since 1990. Deaths citing C. difficile as...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Actor Roy Scheider, the star of such films as "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," died Sunday at 75 in Little Rock, Ark., his wife told The New York Times. Scheider, who lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died of complications from a staph infection, Brenda Scheider told the newspaper. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma. Scheider came to prominence in such '70s films as "Klute" and "The French Connection" -- for which he earned an Oscar nomination as Buddy Russo, the partner of police Detective Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman. Scheider may have...

Muslim women working at U.K. medical facilities are increasingly refusing to comply with the basic hygiene standard of rolling up their sleeves when their washing hands, it was reported. According to the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, female workers are ignoring Britain's Department of Health rules requiring medics to be "bare below the elbow" because they consider showing any skin — outside the hands and face — immodest. The guidelines were put into place to stave off the spread of infectious killer bugs like MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have been implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients, according to...

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion. Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

Washington DC, Jan 29, 2008 / 04:40 am (CNA).- Some conservative groups are alleging that news of a microbe resistant to multiple drugs and found disproportionately among homosexual men is being suppressed due to hostile “politically correct” reactions, Cybercast News Service reports. Researchers recently announced the discovery of a new form of MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an infection that is 13 to 14 times more prevalent in homosexual men than the general population."These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities," said Binh Diep, the University of California-San Francisco scientist...

(CNSNews.com) - Conservative groups say the truth about a new "multi-drug resistant microbe" prevalent among homosexual men is not being presented to the public because of political correctness. Almost two weeks ago, researchers announced they have isolated a new form of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an infection that is spreading through San Francisco's homosexual community and could spread to the general community. "These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities," said Binh Diep, the University of California-San Francisco scientist who led the team that made the finding. In...

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Amanda Beck. She’s a reporter from Reuters who was among the first to cover a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which warns about an outbreak of a virulent, drug-resistant, and potentially deadly strain of Staph infection afflicting certain segments of the homosexual community. Although outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have primarily been confined to hospitals in the past, the study determined that, due to “high risk behaviors” beyond hospital walls — such as “anal sex” — men who have sex with men...

Most infections outside hospitals are from a single, robust form, study says WASHINGTON - One single strain of bacteria is causing most cases of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus found outside hospitals in the United States, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.The USA300 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA is extraordinarily contagious and robust, the U.S. government researchers said.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 /Christian Newswire/ -- Because Concerned Women for America (CWA) cares deeply for the health and well being of all Americans, CWA is sending letters inviting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD and Lambda Legal to put aside profound ideological differences with CWA — for the sake of the lives and health of their members — and to call for commonsense steps to help curb the spread of a potentially deadly strain of Staph infection. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA bacteria, is infecting men who have sex with men in major...

<p>On Monday, a team of researchers led by doctors from the University of California at San Francisco announced that gay men were “many times more likely than others” to acquire a new strain of drug-resistant staphylococcus, a nasty, fast-spreading and potential lethal bacteria known as MRSA USA300. And sure enough, the study, published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was quickly picked up by reporters round the world and across the Internet, including a London tabloid which dubbed the disease “the new H.I.V.”</p>

(NewsTarget) Nearly five percent of patients in U.S. hospitals may have acquired a particular antibiotic resistant staph infection, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Researchers surveyed a total of 1,200 hospitals and other health care facilities from all 50 states, and found 8,000 patients infected or colonized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) -- or 46 out of every 1,000. This suggests that up to 1.2 million hospital patients across the country may be infected every year. Colonized patients are those who were found to be carrying the bacteria in...

(CNSNews.com) - A drug-resistant strain of a deadly staph infection found in some U.S. hospitals is now spreading among homosexual men, researchers said. A conservative group has characterized the problem as the result of "unnatural behaviors." Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005 -- most of them in hospitals, according a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But now the infection is popping up outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, according to Reuters. "The medical community has known for years that homosexual conduct, especially among...

to antibiotics, is now spreading among homosexual males in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, according to a new report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Due to liberal political correctness, which insists on treating aberrant – even deadly – behaviors and lifestyles as a 'civil right,' we as a society don't seem to have learned much from the AIDS pandemic," he said. He called it an "eerie reminder" of the first stories about AIDS. "It is unfathomable that after that plague, disease specialists and the media are now surprised at the correlation of a new infection with...

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday. In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces. The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat. The new strain seems to have “spread rapidly” in...

A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday. The study released online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found the highest concentrations of infection by the drug-resistant bug in and around San Francisco's Castro district and among patients who visit health clinics that treat HIV infections in gay men in San Francisco and Boston. he study estimated that 1 in 588 residents living within the Castro neighborhood 94114 ZIP code area is infected with...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- Reuters has reported that, "A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday. "They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles." "'Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable,' said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study." According to the study, at this point, homosexual men are 13 times more...

SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new medical study appearing in the Annals of American Medicine shows that homosexuals are spreading a new, highly-infectious flesh-eating bacteria amongst themselves, most probably through anal intercourse. The bacterium, called MRSA USA300, is impervious to front-line antibiotics and can only be treated with rarer drugs, primarily Vancomycin. Researchers say that the bug, which is a type of staphylococcus, is primed to develop immunity to that drug as well. Infected patients may have inflammation, abscesses, and tissue loss in the affected areas. Although the bacterium does not literally "eat" the body, it manufactures...

'Flesh-eating' MRSA threatens Britain By Caroline Gammell and Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 5:49pm GMT 15/01/2008 A potentially deadly and highly drug resistant strain of MRSA has developed which can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, researchers have warned. The USA300 strain is spreading outside hospitals into the general population Spreading rapidly among gay men in several major US cities, the bug can cause boils as large as tennis balls, blood poisoning or a necrotising condition which eats away at a person's lungs. The type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was identified in gay men in...

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, has moved outside hospitals and is now spreading among gay men, researchers reported Monday. ... In regards to San Francisco, the study found sexually active gay men are 13 times more likely to be infected than the general population.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday. They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Sexually active gay men in San Francisco are 13 times more likely to be infected than their heterosexual neighbors, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the...

Murtha's comments on 'surge' are a problem for House Democrats Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008. Murtha's latest comments are also a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year. The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful Defense...

M&S pyjamas' silver lining helps stop MRSA Last Updated: 2:39am GMT 29/11/2007 Pyjamas that have been designed to protect hospital patients from the MRSA superbug have gone on sale in Marks & Spencer. The £45 garment has silver thread woven into it, which tests show can reduce the spread of infections. The ongoing clinical trial's interim results are positive M&S is selling the "Sleepsafe" pyjamas, below, at 100 stores as part of a trial. Silver-laced nightwear has been tested in a handful of hospitals, but M&S has become the first retailer in Britain to stock the pyjamas. They are only...

Hospital Superbugs Now In Nursing Homes And Community ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2007) — Hospital superbugs that can break down antibiotics are so widespread throughout Europe that doctors increasingly have to use the few remaining drugs that they reserve for emergencies. Now these hospital superbug strains have spread to nursing homes and into the community in Ireland, raising fears of wider antibiotic resistance, scientists heard 28 November 2007at the Federation of Infection Societies Conference 2007. Doctors collected 732 samples from 22 Irish hospitals over the last ten years and found that 61% of them, 448 samples, tested positive for bacteria that...

Even metaphorical wars can have flesh-and-blood casualties, and hospitals around the country are now tending to the victims of one of our fiercest. It is not so much that we are “losing” this particular war; simple notions of victory and defeat dropped away some time ago. Rather, locked in a spiral of costly and controversial escalations, we may have lost sight of who the enemy actually is.

I'm asking the prayer warriors on this site to please say a prayer for my nephew, Alex. He's 7 and was just diagnosed last night with MRSA. They cleaned the spot out (on his little behind) and have begun anti-biotics and are waiting for the culture to come back before they begin a more aggressive treatment.

Some of the most aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infections gain their advantage with a molecule that punctures the immune cells trying to fight off the bacteria, scientists have discovered. Understanding the role of this molecule in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) could lead to new therapies for the notoriously hard-to-treat, and sometimes fatal, skin infection. Staph bacteria are ubiquitous but aren't dangerous unless they seep into an open wound. Even then, antibiotics will usually stop the infection. But some strains of staph that infect hospital patients with weakened immune systems have become resistant to all standard antibiotics, including methicillin. Now, a newer...

Developing Kryptonite For Superbug ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2007) — University of Idaho researchers are crossing academic and geographical bounds to develop more effective defenses against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and other deadly pathogens. One of the goals of that effort is to create much faster and more accurate identification of strains resistant to the antibiotic methicillin, formally known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Breakthrough detection technologies are already in hand in University of Idaho labs. Nanoelectronic biosensors at the university’s Center for Advanced Microelectronics and Biomolecular Research (CAMBR) recently have cut detection time for staph from the industry standard of...

When Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed the Labour Party last month, he promised the cheering crowd that all hospitals would be "deep cleaned" to rid them of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which are killing an estimated eight thousand hospital patients yearly. He also ordered doctors in the British National Health Service to replace their long-sleeved lab coats with freshly laundered short-sleeved or sleeveless scrubs to curb the spread of germs from patient to patient. Why aren't politicians in the U.S. pledging to clean up hospitals? New data in the Oct. 17 issue of the Journal of the...

Okay, my friends. For the last week or so, the media have gotten Americans all worked up into a froth about this "deadly new bacteria" called MRSA. My ER is now inundated with frantic phone calls from people who have no idea what they are looking at, or what the disease really is. One charming woman (who clearly smoked wayyyyyyyy too much) called amid the throes of a panic attack because she found a pimple and was convinced beyond all attempts to reason with her that she was "gonna die of Melissa." "Ah, you mean MRSA." I corrected the hyperventilating...

Cold war weaponry to tackle superbugs By Gary Cleland Last Updated: 5:47pm GMT 28/10/2007 Technology developed to protect Britain from biological weapons is being redeployed into hospitals to help destroy superbugs. Among the first hospital trusts to install the air disinfection units will be Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, where at least 90 people died from the bug Clostridium difficile. The machines, first developed at the British defence establishment Porton Down in the 1960s, have been approved by an NHS ethics committee after trials at hospitals in Sunderland, Manchester and Carlisle. Tests showed the machines are capable of killing...

An eastern Kentucky school district with one confirmed case of antibiotic-resistant staph infection plans to shut down all 23 of its schools Monday, affecting about 10,300 students, to disinfect the facilities. The project will involve disinfecting classrooms, restrooms, cafeterias, hallways, locker rooms, buses and even external areas such as playgrounds and sports fields, said Roger Wagner, superintendent of Pike County schools. "We're not closing schools because there's been a large number of breakouts, but as a preventive measure," Wagner said. One Pike County student was diagnosed with in September with MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The bacterial strain can be...