MRSA (Mersa) Questions

School Waits 2 Weeks for Death Notice of MRSA Contagious Child

Link: School Waits 2 Weeks for Death Notice of Contagious Child|ABC 7 News.

Parents of students at Bunker Hill Elementary are outraged that the school notified them almost two weeks after a student, who had an extremely contagious disease, died. Parents already knew 11-year-old Dionshae Robinson had died, what they didn't know and just recently found out was the little girl was diagnosed with MRSA, a deadly and extremely contagious anti-biotic resistant staff infection. The school sent out a notice from the Health Department home to parent Monday. 

29% of Australian MRSA community variant

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

The Australian Group on Antimicrobial Resistance studied the epidemiology and outcomes of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia in selected Australian hospitals in 2005-06. Seventeen hospital-based laboratories collected basic demographic, susceptibility and patient outcome data on all cases of S. aureus bacteraemia for 5 to 24 months during the study period. There were 1,511 cases of bacteraemia documented, of which 66% occurred in males and 32% originated from vascular access devices. Bacteraemia had a community onset in 60% of cases, although 31% of these were health-care associated. Overall, 57% of episodes were health-care related. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was the responsible pathogen in 24% of instances; of these 53% were of the typical multi-resistant hospital type, and 29% were of the community-associated type. Seven per cent of all staphylococcal bacteraemias were caused by community-associated MRSA strain types, attesting to the growing size of this problem in Australia. Outcomes were available for 51% of cases and in those the all-cause mortality at 7 days or discharge (whichever came earlier) was 11.2%. Age was strongly associated with mortality; the rate for patients aged more than 60 years was 18%. Sepsis originating from intravascular access devices had a lower mortality rate of 5%. S. aureus bacteraemia is a common community and hospital infection with a significant mortality. A nationally co-ordinated program documenting the incidence and outcomes of this disease would likely lead to measures designed to reduce the incidence and improve outcomes of this disease.

CA MRSA emerging worldwide

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) isolates producing the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) have been reported worldwide. We describe the molecular characteristics of PVL-positive CA-MRSA strains isolated in Madrid, Spain, and analyze the clinical features of patients infected with these isolates. From 2004 to 2007, we collected 13 PVL-positive MRSA isolates from patients attending to the emergency department. The isolates were genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, SCCmec typing, agr polymorphism, and multilocus sequence typing. Susceptibility to 29 antimicrobials was determined by the broth microdilution and by the E-test methods. The isolates belonged to 3 genotypes: ST8-SCCmec IVc (n = 11), ST5-SCCmec IVa (n = 1), and ST80-SCCmec IVc (n = 1). The corresponding agr types were I, II, and III, respectively. Five isolates were resistant to tetracycline and doxycycline, and 1 was resistant to fusidic acid (ST80). The isolates were from children (n = 9) and adults (n = 4), and were associated with skin and soft tissue infections (n = 9), otitis (n = 1), and bacteremia (n = 1). Nine patients were from South America. Our results indicate the transcontinental importation and recent emergence in Spain of PVL-positive CA-MRSA strains belonging to 3 distinct lineages, including 1 predominant (ST8-SCCmec IVc).

MRSA Emerging in Denmark

Link: HighWire Press -- Medline Abstract.

In Copenhagen, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) accounted for <15 isolates per year during 1980-2002. However, since 2003 an epidemic increase has been observed, with 33 MRSA cases in 2003 and 110 in 2004. We analyzed these 143 cases epidemiologically and characterized isolates by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, Staphylococcus protein A (spa) typing, multilocus sequence typing, staphylococcal chromosome cassette (SCC) mec typing, and detection of Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes. Seventy-one percent of cases were community-onset MRSA (CO-MRSA); of these, 36% had no identified risk factors. We identified 29 spa types (t) and 16 sequence types (STs) belonging to 8 clonal complexes and 3 ST singletons. The most common clonal types were t024/ST8-IV, t019/ST30-IV, t044/ST80-IV, and t008/ST8-IV (USA300). A total of 86% of isolates harbored SCCmec IV, and 44% had PVL. Skin and soft tissue infections dominated. CO-MRSA with diverse genetic backgrounds is rapidly emerging in a low MRSA prevalence area.

Staph infection USA 300 crisis traced to single strain

Link: MyrtleBeachOnline.com | 02/21/2008 | Staph infection crisis traced to single strain.

DeLeo's research, the first study to compare DNA fingerprints of the microbe from various parts of the country, traces the origins of community-acquired MRSA and resolves a heated scientific debate. His findings rule out the previously held notion that multiple strains of MRSA emerged randomly with similar characteristics. MRSA was once a hospital-acquired organism. Now, that it is spreading in communities, the bacteria are being brought into hospitals from the outside.

MRSA Strikes Siouxland Toddler

Link: News::MRSA Strikes Siouxland Toddler.

Meet one-year-old Isabella Nilles. She's happy and healthy now, but just a couple of months ago she was battling MRSA. It was just before Christmas and Isabella developed her first diaper rash. Mom and Dad, Amy and Chris, didn't think much of it. Isabella was teething and running a low-grade fever. So the diaper rash didn't seem alarming... but, Amy Nilles says, "Over a couple of days, there was one spot on her diaper rash that looked like it was getting worse." Christmas Eve Isabella's temperature climbed prompting a trip to the hospital. By they time they got there... she had a 104 degree fever. And that little spot that kept getting worse had dramatically grown in just a couple of days. Amy says, "The spot on her bottom had gone from about the size of a quarter to all the way up to her bikini line all the way down her bottom. I mean her skin was red. It was inflamed. It was hard." Doctors did cultures and other tests to figure out what was... but Isabella and her parents were sent home. Two days later they found out it was MRSA. Amy says, "It was bad. It was really, really scary. She could die." Isabella spent 8 days in the hospital. Doctors had to lance the sore to drain it, and give her IV antibiotics. When she went home, more antibiotics for a month. Where did a one-year-old pick up such a dangerous virus? Her daycare. The provider was unaware another child was a carrier and had an open wound.

280 already dead from CA MRSA in the UK?

Link: Community-acquired MRSA infection often fatal | Health | Reuters.

Among people with a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection caught in the general community (rather than in hospital), more than 20 percent were dead within a year, according to new research findings. Dr. Samy Suissa told Reuters Health that doctors have to be on the lookout "for increasingly frequent community-acquired MRSA infections that too often turn out to be fatal." MRSA infections used to be seen only in hospitalized patients, but nowadays they are occurring more frequently in the general population. Suissa, at McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Canada, and colleagues used a UK general practice database to identify 1439 MRSA patients diagnosed in the community from 2001 to 2004. Each patient was compared with up to 10 matched patients without a MRSA diagnosis. All of the subjects were older than 18 years of age, the average age was 70 years, and none had been hospitalized within the previous 2 years. The patients with MRSA were more likely to have other medical conditions, the researchers report in the online medical journal BMC Medicine. After 1 year of follow-up, 21.8 percent of MRSA patients had died compared to only 5.0 percent of those in the non-MRSA group.

CA MRSA - the best article we've seen in 4 years

Link: Skin Deep: Mark Honigsbaum reports on USA300, a new, flesh-eating superbug | Health and wellbeing | Life and Health.

It's flesh-eating, drug resistant and highly contagious - USA300 is a deadly strain of MRSA that has been identified in San Francisco. But is this new superbug the nightmare public health hazard it's feared to be? And could it spread over here?

Click the link above

GPs on alert for killer MRSA strain in nurseries, schools and the gym

Link: GPs on alert for killer MRSA strain in nurseries, schools and the gym | the Daily Mail.

Family doctors are being put on high alert for cases of a flesh-eating strain of MRSA that thrives in nurseries, classrooms and gyms. GPs will for the first time be given detailed guidelines on how to diagnose and treat the highly infectious bug, thought to be even deadlier than the version sweeping through hospitals. The risk is so serious that the Health Protection Agency and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy have come together to draw up the advice, designed to stop the bug running riot across the UK as it has in the U.S. Killer bug: GPs are being warned community-acquired MRSA can be caught in nurseries, schools and gyms Unlike normal MRSA, communityacquired MRSA produces a flesh-eating poison that can rapidly eat away at the lungs, killing within hours. The toxin also destroys infection-fighting white blood cells, putting fit, young, healthy people - including children and babies - at threat.

New Strains of CA MRSA Forecast

Link: Epidemic superbug strains evolved from one bacterium: study - Yahoo! News UK.

Scientists studying the genetic make-up of these bugs, which are resistant to almost all antibiotics, say they are nearly identical clones that have emerged from a single bacterial strain, which they have dubbed USA300. "The USA300 group of strains appears to have extraordinary transmissibility and fitness," said Frank DeLeo, a researcher with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Hamilton, Montana. "We anticipate that new USA300 derivatives will emerge within the next several years and that these strains will have a wide range of disease-causing potential."