MRSA Becoming an Equal-Opportunity Infection

Link: MRSA Becoming an Equal-Opportunity Infection.

"Anyone can get MRSA. MRSA isn’t just for hospitalized patients any more," Dr. Loren G. Miller told Reuters Health.

"Many people assumed exposures like drug use, recent incarceration, being a health care worker, or playing team sports would mark a person as being at risk for MRSA because outbreaks of MRSA have been repeatedly associated with drug use, incarceration, health care workers, and team sports," Dr. Miller pointed out.

"We found a few factors were associated with higher risk of MRSA — compared to MSSA," he continued. "However, none of the risk factors were even remotely reliable at distinguishing MRSA from MSSA."

Dr. Miller of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California and colleagues came to this conclusion after a prospective study of 108 patients hospitalized with MRSA and 78 hospitalized with MSSA infection.

MRSA infection was associated with being young, having skin or soft tissue infection, snorting or smoking illegal drugs and frequently visiting bars and clubs.

However, continued Dr. Miller, "Although 60% of our patients with S. aureus infections had MRSA, lacking all three of the strongest risk factors still decreased the MRSA likelihood only to 52%."

"In other words," he concluded, "you don’t have to be special to have MRSA. You don’t have to be a football player, drug user, recently incarcerated, or a health care worker to get MRSA infection. "