Link: Newsday.com.
Some experts fear the new MRSA "clones" from outside communities will find their way into health care settings where patients are most vulnerable.
Others suspect the bugs have already arrived.
"These are brand-new strains that are emerging in the communities," said Dr. John Jernigan, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"But there is evidence now that these new strains have found their way into hospitals and can be transmitted in those settings."
If the new MRSA strains from communities remain strong enough to sustain widespread levels of infection, then the situation could become potentially explosive in hospitals, said Hajo Grundman, an infectious disease expert with the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System in the Netherlands.
Writing in the current issue of The Lancet, Grundman said the MRSA situation with hospital-passed strains is already out of control in many parts of the world. Adding another could prove the tipping point of an infectious disease disaster, he said.
