Experts: MRSA is Not Big Health Risk: State Officials Are Advising Schools

Oct 25, 08:51 AM

Current Headlines: By Laura Giovanelli, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Oct. 25--Cases of antibiotic-resistant infections that have cropped up in schools around North Carolina are not the sign of a major public-health worry, top state health officials said yesterday.

School systems around the Triad, including those in Forsyth, Davie, Yadkin and Guilford counties, have reported cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in the past week.

Guilford County Schools canceled a junior-varsity football game and rescheduled a soccer game last week between Page High School and East Forsyth High School after news broke that six students at East Forsyth had been found to have MRSA.

Additional cases have been confirmed at other Forsyth County schools. Parents at Reynolds High School received a letter this week telling them that one student there was treated for MRSA.

MRSA is contagious and is most often spread through direct contact with an open, oozing wound or through sharing such personal items as towels, razors and clothing.

Athletes, particularly those who participate in such contact sports as wrestling, are at higher risk for developing MRSA infections.

State officials have been working with schools to get students to shower after working out and to avoid sharing towels and equipment.

Schools should also ask students to wash their hands regularly and cover wounds, said Dr. Leah Devlin, the state health director.

"It's absolutely not necessary to close schools, to cancel athletic events because MRSA has been diagnosed in a school or on a team," Devlin said. "It would be like trying to disinfect the school to prevent the common cold."

MRSA infections may look like a pimple or a boil. They can be red, swollen and painful, and can ooze pus.

Devlin said that MRSA infections are not reported to the state because they are common. Although they are resistant to some anti­botics, they are treatable with others.

About 0.8 percent of the population, or eight people out of every 1,000, are colonized with MRSA, which means that it lives on their skin. "They don't have it for life -- it may be on their skin for a few weeks or months and goes away naturally," said Dr. Jeffrey Engel, the state epidemiologist. The bacteria can cause an infection if the person gets a cut.

Guilford County canceled the games as a precaution, said Herb Goins, Guilford's head athletics director. Another reason was "for lack of a better word, hysteria," from parents and other people associated with Page, Goins said.

"There were just a lot of concerns. It gave time for our district to get out some information on our Web site, and to let things settle down," he said. "I think it's just not knowing. Some parents were thinking that you couldn't treat this and that it couldn't be cured."

The schools' varsity football teams played against each other Friday, and the soccer match was played Saturday.

Local media attention after the cases were announced prompted a news conference by the Forsyth County health director, Dr. Tim Monroe, and school officials. They said many of the same things that Devlin said yesterday.

The fear was fed by widespread state and national attention last week after a high-school student in Virginia died of an MRSA infection.

Some parents have said that they should have been notified about East Forsyth's cases sooner. A school spokesman said last week that the first case in the East Forsyth outbreak was confirmed on Sept. 7. School officials said they sent letters home to parents Oct. 19.

A study published Oct. 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association kept the MRSA story alive and on newspapers' front pages. The study estimated that nearly 19,000 people die of MRSA a year, but the majority those infections were in health-care settings.

State health officials- who yesterday gathered to talk to media about the coming flu season -- noted that twice as many Americans die of seasonal flu.

Doctors say that there is a difference between community-acquired MRSA and hospital-acquired MRSA. There is some evidence that community-acquired MRSA spreads more easily, according to the Web site of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hospital-acquired MRSA tends to be more difficult to treat and affects people who are already sick, Dr. Christopher Ohl, a professor of infectious diseases at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said last week.

-- Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.

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