The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received inquiries about infections with antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (including methicillin-resistant S. aureus [MRSA]) among persons who have no apparent contact with the healthcare system. This fact sheet addresses some of the most frequently asked questions.
What is Staphylococcus aureus?
Staphylococcus aureus, often referred to simply as "staph," are bacteria commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of healthy people. Occasionally, staph can cause an infection; staph bacteria are one of the most common causes of skin infections in the United States. Most of these infections are minor (such as pimples and boils) and most can be treated without antibiotics (also known as antimicrobials or antibacterials). However, staph bacteria can also cause serious infections (such as surgical wound infections and pneumonia). In the past, most serious staph bacteria infections were treated with a certain type of antibiotic related to penicillin. Over the past 50 years, treatment of these infections has become more difficult because staph bacteria have become resistant to various antibiotics, including the commonly used penicillin-related antibiotics (1). These resistant bacteria are called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
Where are staph and MRSA found?
Staph bacteria and MRSA can be found on the skin and in the nose of some people without causing illness. Top
What is the difference between colonization and infection?
Colonization occurs when the staph bacteria are present on or in the body without causing illness. Approximately 25 to 30% of the population is colonized in the nose with staph bacteria at a given time (2).
Infection occurs when the staph bacteria cause disease in the person. People also may be colonized or infected with MRSA, the staph bacteria that are resistant to many antibiotics. Top
Who gets MRSA?
Staph bacteria can cause different kinds of illness, including skin infections, bone infections, pneumonia, severe life-threatening bloodstream infections, and others. Since MRSA is a staph bacterium, it can cause the same kinds of infection as staph in general; however, MRSA occurs more commonly among persons in hospitals and healthcare facilities.
MRSA infection usually develops in hospitalized patients who are elderly or very sick or who have an open wound (such as a bedsore) or a tube going into their body (such as a urinary catheter or intravenous [IV] catheter). MRSA infections acquired in hospitals and healthcare settings can be severe. In addition, certain factors can put some patients at higher risk for MRSA including prolonged hospital stay, receiving broad-spectrum antibiotics, being hospitalized in an intensive care or burn unit, spending time close to other patients with MRSA, having recent surgery, or carrying MRSA in the nose without developing illness (3-6).
MRSA causes illness in persons outside of hospitals and healthcare facilities as well. Cases of MRSA diseases in the community have been associated with recent antibiotic use, sharing contaminated items, having active skin diseases, and living in crowded settings. Clusters of skin infections caused by MRSA have been described among injecting drug-users (7,8), aboriginals in Canada (9), New Zealand (10) or Australia (11,12), Native Americans in the United States (13), incarcerated persons (14), players of close-contact sports (15,16) and other populations (17-23). Community-associated MRSA infections are typically skin infections, but also can cause severe illness as in the cases of four children who died from community-associated MRSA (24). Most of the transmission in these settings appeared to be from people with active MRSA skin infections. Top
How common is staph and MRSA?
Staph bacteria are one of the most common causes of skin infection in the United States, and are a common cause of pneumonia and bloodstream infections. Staph and MRSA infections are not routinely reported to public health authorities, so a precise number is not known. According to some estimates, as many as 100,000 persons are hospitalized each year with MRSA infections, although only a small proportion of these persons have disease onset occurring in the community. Approximately 25 to 30% of the population is colonized in the nose with staph bacteria at a given time (2). The numbers who are colonized with MRSA at any one time is not known. CDC is currently collaborating with state and local health departments to improve surveillance for MRSA. Active, population-based surveillance in selected regions of the United States is ongoing and will help characterize the scope and risk factors for MRSA in the community. Top
Are staph and MRSA infections treatable?
Yes. Most staph bacteria and MRSA are susceptible to several antibiotics. Furthermore, most staph skin infections can be treated without antibiotics by draining the sore. However, if antibiotics are prescribed, patients should complete the full course and call their doctors if the infection does not get better. Patients who are only colonized with staph bacteria or MRSA usually do not need treatment. Top
How are staph and MRSA spread?
Staph bacteria and MRSA can spread among people having close contact with infected people. MRSA is almost always spread by direct physical contact, and not through the air. Spread may also occur through indirect contact by touching objects (i.e., towels, sheets, wound dressings, clothes, workout areas, sports equipment) contaminated by the infected skin of a person with MRSA or staph bacteria. Top
How can I prevent staph or MRSA infections?
Practice good hygiene
1. Keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water
2. Keep cuts and abrasions clean and covered with a proper dressing (e.g., bandage) until healed
3. Avoid contact with other people’s wounds or material contaminated from wounds.
What should I do if I think I have a Staph or MRSA infection?
See your healthcare provider.
What is CDC doing to address MRSA in the community?
CDC is concerned about MRSA in communities and is working with multiple partners on prevention strategies.
CDC is working with 4 states in a project to define the spectrum of disease, determine populations affected, and developing studies to define who is at particular risk for infection
CDC is working with state health departments to assist in the development of surveillance systems for tracking MRSA in the community
CDC is using the National Health and Nutritional Evaluation Survey (NHANES) to estimate the number of individuals in the United States who carry staph bacteria in their nose
CDC works with laboratories across the country to improve the detection of MRSA through training personnel and use of appropriate testing methods
CDC provides technical expertise to hospitals and state and local health departments on infection control in healthcare settings, including control of MRSA
CDC laboratories are working to characterize the unique features of MRSA strains from the community.
MRSA also called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a virulent bacterium which now only responds to two antibiotics "of last resort." It's long been a menace in hospitals, where the packed conditions dramatically increase the risk of patients developing a bacterial infection. Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common hospital acquired infections. The pathogen causes painful skin boils and abscesses, and can lead to potentially fatal blood infections and heart damage. The bug is spread through casual contact between people. In the San Francisco Bay Area, doctors have been seeing more cases in their general practices, said Dr. David Witt, an infectious disease specialist at Kaiser Permanente's South San Francisco medical center. Dr. Witt emphasized that the current MRSA outbreaks are the result of the widespread misuse of antibiotics
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Vitamin C
The body doesn't want ascorbic acid per se; it wants the C-complex being preserved by ascorbic acid. Once in the body, the body sheds the ascorbic acid, the preservative wrapper, the way you shed the peel of an orange; takes the rest of the C-complex and places it as the lance of the lymphocyte; and kills bacteria with it. A lymphocyte unarmed with C complex will fail in its function, it will be impotent, it won't be able to destroy infectious organisms. Lymphocyte potency is dependent on copper, the core trace mineral of the tyrosinase enzyme. The reason one gets any relief from taking ascorbic acid is that ascorbic acid lowers the pH to the acid side of the pH scale. It acidifies the body, creating an unfavorable medium of growth for pathogenic bacteria. Acting in this way, ascorbic acid is not producing a "vitamin effect" but rather an "acidifying effect." Most infectious pathogenic bacteria thrive in an alkaline pH. The following bacteria, all well-known enemies of modern science's war on bacterial infection, grew optimally on alkaline media of pH 7.4 and above: staphylococcus (staph infection), streptococcus (strep throat), pneumococcus (pneumonia), h. influenza (the flu), meningococcus (meningitis), corymbacterium diptheria (diptheria), clostridium tetani (tetanus), and others.
Staphylococcus: A group of bacteria that cause a multitude of diseases. Under a microscope, Staphylococcus bacteria are round and bunched together. They can cause illness directly by infection, or indirectly through products they make, such as the toxins responsible for food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. The best known member of the Staphylococcus family is Staphylococcus aureus. Staphylococcus are the main culprit in hospital-acquired infections, and cause thousands of deaths every year.
Staph aureus is a common pathogen that infects about 400,000 U.S. hospital patients a year. About one-quarter of them die. For decades, scientists have been dreading -- but expecting -- a staph aureus strain to emerge that is resistant to vancomycin. Some experts postulate that eventually, so many bacteria will develop resistance that antibiotics won't work and hospitals will be filled with people dying from infections, as they were in the 1920s. Staph aureus can live innocuously in the nose of a healthy person. About 5 to 10 percent of Michiganders have it and don't know it, said William Brown, a Wayne State University pathology professor. If it infects the blood, however, it can quickly become fatal, particularly if the person has another medical condition.
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