Hospitals resist reporting

Link: To cut staph cases, target hospitals | ajc.com.

Parents became alarmed earlier in the school year when 23 cases of skin bacteria MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) turned up in metro schools. The local cases were reported within weeks of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that for the first time quantified that approximately 19,000 patients a year die from the virulent superbug. But the CDC noted that 85 percent of those deadly infections were picked up by patients exposed to MRSA in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care settings. The Georgia Hospital Association opposes mandatory reporting of acquired infections as "duplicative, unnecessarily burdensome and costly."