Coverage of MRSA Infections Causes Scare at Virginia Tech

Oct 26, 05:03 AM

Current Headlines: By Michelle Rivera

By Michelle Rivera
The Collegiate Times ( Virginia Tech )

(U-WIRE) BLACKSBURG, Va. -- A flood of media coverage has put a spotlight on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) after a number of recent cases arose in Virginia and several other states. David Popham, associate professor of microbiology at Virginia Tech, said S. aureus is a common type of bacteria that is found on most people's skin. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention's website said that approximately 25 percent to 30 percent of the population is colonized with the normal strain, and approximately one percent is colonized with MRSA. According to the CDC website, MRSA can cause skin infections that may look like a pimple or boil and can be red, swollen, painful, or have pus or other drainage. "In hospitals where you have a lot of sick people and a large amount of antibiotics used on many different people, strains of bacteria have appeared that are resistant to antibiotics, particularly to methicillin and other similar antibiotics that were the best ones to use for those kinds of infections," Popham said. "For a long time, those resistant strains were found in hospitals." He explained that these new resistant strains, such as MRSA, have recently come to light and caused concerns because these more invasive strains are showing up outside of hospital settings, such as in high schools and secondary schools. Myra Badger, a wound care nurse at Schiffert Health Center, said there are two entirely different strains or types of MRSA: hospital-associated MRSA and community-associated MRSA. HA-MRSA has been around since the '60s and '70s, and CA-MRSA, which is the strain that has been extensively publicized recently, has been around since the '80s. Badger stressed that health professionals are not overly concerned as MRSA is not as big of a threat as recent media coverage has made it out to be. Popham said that though MRSA and other strains like it are resistant to commonly used antibiotics, there are other drugs that can be used against them. Such infections, however, become serious when the bacteria become invasive, meaning that after they infect skin wounds, they infect the tissues beneath and make their way into the bloodstream. When this occurs, the bacteria can quickly infect organs and bones, causing infections which are much more difficult to treat. "In hospitals, they were on guard for these resistant strains," Popham said. "Now they're outside of hospitals and people aren't knowledgeable about what it is, and infections can go further, get more invasive, and become much harder to treat." Last Monday, a 17-year-old Staunton River High School student died from a MRSA infection that spread to his liver, kidneys, and lungs. Since then, schools have closed in multiple counties statewide and in several other states for intense cleansing as cases continue to surface. Schools are taking more aggressive cleansing measures to ensure that MRSA, a bacteria spread by contact, is not present on school facilities, especially recreational areas where the bacteria are known to be more common. "MRSA is probably the highest concern of all bacteria that you can get at such a facility," said David Shuster, assistant director of facilities and informal recreation. He said Tech has been concerned with disease and infection from day one and protocols used since MRSA has become more newsworthy are not that different from those used previously. A new preventative measure being taken is the exchange of the towels available for disinfecting use at Tech facilities for disposable, single-use towels. Shuster said that MRSA has been in the news lately because some of the places where cases have appeared were not as vigilant in maintaining sanitation standards. "You have to have been paying attention to it and be prepared for it," he said. "A lot of the schools didn't have the methods and resources to prevent transmission, but here on campus we have the resources and have known about and been concerned about these things for a while now, and we have not had these cases pop up before." Paige Bordwine, district epidemiologist for the New River health district, also agreed that MRSA seems to be more prevalent. "MRSA has been around for some time, and I think now we're just diagnosing it more," she said. "We've had cases for several years." Bordwine also said that the mode of transmission is direct person-to-person contact. "You'd have to touch the area of infection of another person or a contaminated surface," she said. "MRSA can survive on things like towels in a locker room or other personal items."

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