CDC reports resistant Staph infections represent major health-care problem
Researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC) report that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections represent a "major health-care problem" and are linked to an estimated 18,600 U.S. deaths in 2005, compared with the estimated 17,000 people who died of AIDS in the U.S. that year. Once seen as just a problem in health-care settings, the infections are now popping up among the otherwise young and healthy, including cases of two high school students in Nashua, N.H., earlier this fall, and 14 cases reported since August in the Montgomery County, Md., school district. Two other children have died of MRSA infections in October, according to press reports. A school district in southwestern Virginia shut down for a day of deep cleaning in the wake of a student death attributed to a virulent strain of bacterium and a national report indicating that such infections may be more common than previously thought. But while school districts have reported engaging in intensive cleaning to quell the spread of the bacterium, experts say that frequent handwashing is one of the best ways to prevent MRSA infection. Students also should not share towels and sports equipment, and should always shower after athletic practices and events. Tia Campbell, the school health specialist for the Virginia Department of Education, noted the limited effect of intensive efforts to cleanse school facilities. "What the epidemiologists are telling us is that our routine cleaning should be sufficient," she said. "Staph is on us and among us. You may do deep cleaning, but when you open the doors to the building the next morning, you’ve reintroduced staph again."
Ryan Edwards, the spokesman for Virginia’s 11,000-student Bedford County district, emphasized that the one-day closings were mainly a way to ease worries and educate students and parents, not a matter of necessity from a health standpoint. In the Nashua school district, the diagnosis of MRSA in two students prompted a thorough cleaning of the locker rooms and other athletic facilities. According to Edward J. Hendry, the associate superintendent, the school system also sent out two letters alerting parents of the infections. "Schools have got to take it seriously, but we can’t alarm people," he said. That similar tactic of alerting parents and cleaning schools was followed by Maryland’s 138,000-student Montgomery County district this year, said district spokesman Brian K. Edwards. Though individual school communities were notified when cases were diagnosed, the school system sent a letter home to all parents last week, after the CDC study was released. "We wanted to reassure them, and let them know what we are doing and that there are things [parents] can be doing," Mr. Edwards said.
Education Week By Christina A. Samuels
[Editor’s Note: The CDC’s information page on MRSA is below.]
CDC on MRSA