Drug-Resistant Infecftion Up in Chicago

May 29, 09:31 PM

Current Headlines: The Cook County Jail in Chicago appears to be an incubator for a drug-resistant infection that can become life-threatening.

Infections with methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, are becoming increasingly common in the city's poor neighborhoods, the Chicago Tribune reported. Researchers who published a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine said the risk is highest among blacks, people who have been jailed in the past year and residents of housing projects in the Near Northside.

This is a pandemic in the making and the source of an enormous increased burden of disease across Chicago, said Dr. Robert Daum, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago who specializes in MRSA.

Those infected can develop abscesses or boils, painful but not life-threatening. In a few victims, the infection can lead to deadly pneumonia.

The researchers say community-associated MRSA tends to be more virulent than the infection picked up in hospitals. They found the infection rate increased in Chicago from 24 cases per 100,000 people in 2000 to 164.2 cases per 100,000 in 2005.