Does everyone who gets MRSA become sick?

No,  many healthy individuals have been found to carry staphylococcus in their nose or skin at any given time. While the bacteria do not cause infections, it does become colonized. Once colonized, these bacteria only cause an infection if the individual becomes sick, cuts himself or is involved in a traumatic incident. The majority of healthy individuals who are colonized with MRSA do not become sick but are quite capable of transferring the organism to others by sharing personal care items or by coming in close contact.

Even though several newer antibiotics have been developed to fight off MRSA, experts believe that it is only a matter of time before the staphylococcus develops resistance to these new drugs.

While the vast majority of MRSA are found in the hospital, the community based MRSA has been found in clusters among athletes, law enforcement and military personnel, children and many minority ethnic groups.

Can you tell me what is MRSA?

In the last decade, there has been almost daily news about MRSA or methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreaks all over the country. The media hype about this infection has created hysteria among both health care professionals and the public. There have been reports that his bug has caused deaths in other wise healthy individuals and many hospitals have had to close down operating rooms. If so, what is this Superbug; is it that bad and how does one acquire it?

MRSA is caused by the bacteria, staphylococcus or sometimes called staph. About 2 decades ago, a strain of staphylococcus surfaced in hospitals that was very resistant to many antibiotics that were designed to kill it. This led to its name- methicillin resistant staphylococcus or MRSA. MRSA is generally a harmless organism but can also cause serious infections in individuals who are hospitalized. It is also very resistant to most antibiotics, except vancomycin. In the last 7 years, many strains of staphylococcus have also started to show resistance to vancomycin.

For the better part of the past two decades, MRSA was predominantly a hospital based organism; this is not true anymore. MRSA is now widely found in the community. These community associated MRSA do differ slightly from the hospitals strains but can also cause serious skin, soft tissue infections and pneumonias. Most patients who do acquire MRSA in the community have no idea how they acquired the organism.