Link: Chattanooga Times Free Press | Chattanooga: MRSA infections on rise outside hospitals.
These days, if someone shows up in an emergency room with a bug bite that won’t heal, doctors immediately become suspicious.
“When people come in the ERs and say, ‘Hey, I have this spider bite,’ I think most practitioners now automatically think, ‘We probably got some MRSA going on,’” said Chuck Reece, quality vice president at Parkridge Medical Center.
MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. If contracted outside a hospital, MRSA (pronounced “mersa”), typically appear in the form of a skin infection resembling a bug bite, Mr. Reece said.
WHAT IS MRSA?
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a strain of staph infection that has developed a resistance to methicillin-related antibiotics, including penicillin. It is spread primarily through skin-to-skin contact but also can be passed on through shared use of personal hygiene products or sports equipment.
SOURCE: Mayo Clinic and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“It is not rare for us to see these community-acquired infections coming through the ERs, (in patients such as) young athletes, healthy people,” he said.
Though doctors still have a number of antibiotics that are effective in stamping out the disease, if left untreated MRSA can be fatal.
After gonorrhea and chlamydia, invasive MRSA is the third most-common reportable communicable disease in Tennessee, said Dr. Marion Kainer, medical epidemiologist with the Tennessee Department of Health.
