-
Nov 8, 2007 9:35 am US/Mountain
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
MRSA Spread Physically, New Strain Attacks Tissue
Good Question: Why Is MRSA Spreading?
by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ―
MRSA has been making headlines recently because of cases in schools and gyms across the United States. The disease has traditionally been linked to hospitals. Experts said the reason there seems to be more of it is an increased awareness and a new strain that kills tissue.
CBS4 asked the Good Question: Why is MRSA spreading?
"What's unique about the strain we're seeing in the community is it has an extra toxin gene and the toxin gene causes your skin to develop these abscesses," said Dr. Michelle Barron at the University of Colorado Denver's Infectious Diseases Division. "It kills off the tissue, whereas the hospital strain doesn't typically do that."
Experts believe healthy people who've recently been treated with antibiotics are at greater risk. They don't know why. Some suggest the spread could be the result of changes in health care.
"You don't have to be in the hospital now to be getting antibiotics, to be getting physical therapy. You can be at home and getting it," said Barron.
MRSA may be more recently well-known, but the way people get it and keep it away is not.
"Organisms do not fly, they do not have wings," said Dr. Bennie Lindeque, an Orthopaedist at the University of Colorado Hospital. "So what happens is they get carried over, physically carried over."
One of the best ways to prevent the spread of MRSA is to wash hands. Experts also said anyone with a scrape or cut that isn't healing normally should call their doctor.
MRSA is a type of drug resistant staph bacteria that lives in the nose of a person. There's a good chance anyone has MRSA in their nose.
"Twenty to 30 percent of staph organism and about 5 percent of MRSA," said Lindeque.
The disease has been found in hospitals since the 1960s, striking when immune systems are weak.
People with good immune systems hold the organisms at bay.
"And somebody comes after us and grabs something and then we touch our nose we touch our face and we now have it," said Barron.
(© MMVII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)