This alleged “superbug,” so called because it is resistant to standard antibiotics, is showing up more and more in the common areas of our society. If you attend school, ride the subway, travel through an airport, go to a gym for a workout or visit an aging relative in a nursing home, you may encounter MRSA.
Once MRSA infects you, it’s a tough bug to kill. But it’s not something you can ignore because if you don’t seek treatment, the infection can escalate into life-threatening complications, attacking major organs, joints and the bloodstream.
MRSA infections are particularly dangerous in hospitals, where many patients present with open wounds, and invasive operating devices combine with highly fragile immune systems to put a large number of people at risk.
Statistics are somewhat hard to come by because MRSA manifests in many forms. The last statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention date back to 1999 when an estimated 127,000 MRSA infections were detected. The CDC also reported that 11,000 people died that year from MRSA-related causes, roughly fewer than 10 percent of the cases.
The CDC estimated that approximately two in 100 people carry the MRSA staph germ. But there is good news –awareness of the infection means cases appear to be decreasing. A recent CDC study indicated that reported MRSA infections in hospitals have dropped by more than 50 percent from 2005-2011, the years of the survey. That greater awareness, proactive treatments and isolation of potential carriers has contributed to limiting the spread.
MRSA was first identified in 1961 in the UK. The Staphylococcus infection gradually developed immunity to the standard treatment of the time, the antibiotic methicillin, and mutated into what’s today called MRSA. It was first seen in hospitals but since has moved out into the larger community and world and is now found in every area where humans gather.
While MRSA can be found virtually everywhere, it’s not a problem unless it can enter your body through a cut or other open area. That’s why people in close quarters tend to be most at risk of acquiring the infection, particularly in situations where they are already battling some other malady, like at a hospital or nursing home.
Symptoms of MRSA
How can you tell if an infection is MRSA? The first signs of trouble are the appearance of swollen, red and painful areas of the skin. These can present as fluid-filled boils or cuts that ooze pus. These don’t have to be huge gashes.
Typically, they are small cuts on the body that may or may not have been noticed when they occur. Thus, when people come into contact with shared objects like towels, razors, or perhaps touch or rub the infection, problems arise. The hirsute are particularly good spreaders of the infection because MRSA loves to enter the body through hair follicles.
When MRSA takes hold, you’ll notice that its symptoms escalate beyond the cuts. You may develop chest pain and shortness of breath, begin coughing, and get the type of ill feeling that usually indicates the onset of a cold or flu – headache, fever and a rash. If left alone, these symptoms can escalate into something more serious, like pneumonia.
Your doctor will identify which particular strain of MRSA you may have acquired. There are at least seven known variants, but the two main types are called hospital-acquired MRSA (HA-MRSA) and community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA). As is obvious from their titles, the hospital version is picked up in medical facilities, while the community infection comes from situations outside of a medical facility.
TIME FOR SOME TESTS
The only sure way to know if your infection is MRSA is through extensive medical testing. Trained professionals will collect a sample from the infected area, and urine or blood tests may be undertaken to discover the cause of your condition definitively.
Once MRSA is identified, medical professionals usually bypass regular antibiotics and head straight to stronger drugs that can battle the disease. The treatments may last for weeks to ensure that you are fully cleared of the MRSA infection, and you will be monitored during the period. Most MRSA treatments will require that you keep any wounds well-bandaged and that you avoid gyms and other facilities during your treatment.
While you can go about your normal life in most cases, some severe infections may require a brief period of isolation or hospitalization. There are some government officials and health professionals who believe that MRSA infections pose a deadly threat to the public health and, therefore, need to be identified before they spread the disease further. This is a somewhat radical step, but in a strict dollars and cents analysis, some medical facilities believe that enormous costs can be saved if MRSA patients are identified and isolated. Some U.S. states have laws that require patients who seek admission to any medical facility to be screened automatically for the superbug.
While health facilities are particularly aware of the problem, any outbreak of community MRSA presents a different challenge. Often, the infection has already spread by the time public officials are aware of the outbreak. That makes it difficult to track, and patients may spread it to other communities.
Your doctor can tell you whether or not you have MRSA or just a common infection. Keep in mind that the deaths and serious complications from the disease have mostly occurred in immune-compromised people. Healthy adults and children who acquire the disease stand an excellent chance of battling it, thanks to improved understanding of the infection.