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Infections with the bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have declined in recent years, according to a new huge study.
The bacteria are perhaps best known for spreading among hospital patients, but people have also contracted infections from elsewhere in their communities; the data show that the rates of both types of infections dropped between 2005 and 2010.
In 2005, community-onset MRSA infections affected 1.7 per 100,000 people, on average, but by 2010, the number had fallen to 1.2 infections per 100,000 people. Hospital-onset infections dropped from 0.7 infections per 100,000 people to 0.4 infections per 100,000 people between 2005 and 2010.
The findings are based on data collected by the Department of Defense on more than 9 million active and nonactive military personnel.
The decreases mean that MRSA infections “still represent a large burden of disease, but at least there are some encouraging results,” said study author Dr. Clinton Murray, chief of the Infectious Disease Service at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Murray said that he found the decrease in the rate of community-onset infections surprising. Prior to 2005, the rate had been rapidly increasing.
About 19,000 people die yearly from MRSA infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About one in five of those who develop invasive MRSA infections, which take hold in the blood and spread throughout the body, die from the bacteria. People with open wounds, particularly those in hospitals, as well as people with weakened immune systems, are more likely to die from MRSA.
Community-onset MRSA infections often spread through locker rooms or other close-contact situations.
The study's results are promising, and confirm a previous report by the CDC suggesting similar decreasing trends, said Dr. Michael David, who researches MRSA at the University of Chicago and was not involved in the study.
While the exact reasons for the decreases are unknown, researchers think that improved hospital practices, such as better cleaning practices and increasing attention to the importance of sterile treatments for open wounds, have played a role, David said.
The research also showed that the percentage of MRSA infections that developed outside of hospitals may have peaked in 2006, at 62 percent of infections, before decreasing to 52 percent in 2010.
David said that while these numbers are a positive sign, rates of community-onset infections are still much higher than in previous decades.
"If a doctor left the States in 1999, and came back in 2010, [he or she] would be shocked," David said. Community-onset MRSA went from “never causing infection, to being the No. 1 cause," he said, and scientists are still trying to understand exactly why this happened.
More common in men
The researchers searched the health records of the 9 million military personnel, of which 82 percent were nonactive, and 52 percent were male.
Over the six years, the records showed 80,281 MRSA infections of the skin or soft tissue, and 2,643 cases of infections in the blood. The infection was more common in men and people over age 65.
The data used in the study did not include people's risk factors for developing MRSA infections, which is unfortunate, David said, because tracking such factors may have yielded clues as to which improvements in health care practices are having the biggest impact.
While the study was large, it was limited in that the people included represent a subset of the general population, and because all participants had certain levels of income and access to health care.
Additionally, the researchers noted they used data collected only by military hospitals; people with military insurance can choose to see private physicians, so some cases of MRSA may have not been accounted for. While this should not affect the decrease found in the study, it may mean that actual incidence of MRSA is higher than was found here, the researchers said.
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Based on what I hear from friends in the health care industry, this study may not be all that accurate. From what they tell me, MRSA is still a big problem and it has not gotten any better recently. In fact, one of them even contracted a MRSA infection but luckily was able to be treated and cleared of the infection, although it took two months and two different courses of antibiotics to do it.
MRSA is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm surprised that it 'appears' there is less MRSA; perhaps it just isn't being reported anymore like mine wasn't. It took firing my doctor and finding a new one who wasn't afraid to give me strong enough antibiotics for long enough to get rid of it. 6 months. Of course, initially, I was sick over the holidays starting the day before Thanksgiving so the doctor wasn't too interested in doing much work. I was asked to come in to the office a few days in to January and the doc walked in and stated heartily "Now lets get this thing taken care of!" Yeah whatever. I think the only reason we still have MRSA is due to a lackadaisical attitude toward sanitation and treating MRSA....in spite of the misery and death it can cause. Oh yeah....it was also THE worst holiday season I ever experienced in my life and all due to lack of appropriate antibiotics for MRSA. smdh.
The reason we still have MRSA is because staph bacteria are everyhere. Many people carry it on their skin, with no problem whatsoever. When they touch doorknobs, phones, pens, whatever - they transfer it. Sometimes it's going to be a methcillin-resistant strain of staph (MRSA). There's no practical way to get rid of it on surfaces - disinfect everything anyone touches, every time they touch it, not just in medical settings, but ALL settings? We just can't do that. And you can't sterilize skin, so it's always going to be around.
MRSA naturally grows on your skin. So does Rhinovirus (colds), Adenovirus (eye infections), Pseudomonas (sever infections of various types especially in immunosuppressed patients or patients with COPD), Shigella (bloody diarrhea), Hepatitis A virus, Haemophilus influenza (pneumonia and meningitis).
I am skeptical of applying the findings for the military population and making broad generalizations for the American public as a whole. There maybe very different factors playing out that in the civilian population and one would overlook causes and incidence.
It seems all of the articles on MRSA involve skin infections that lead to blood infections, etc. A relative recently has been diagnosed with MRSA in connection with a urinary tract infection caused from a catheter. The man has been in and out of his nursing home or in the hospital with pneumonia, diabetes, congestive heart failure and has experienced very low blood glucose levels as well as low blood pressure levels. Could any of this be caused by the MRSA? Does one ever get rid of MRSA or does it remain dormant in the body?
isn't it interesting that MRSA was diagnosed at almost the same time as widespread use of GMOs in our food supplies?
Janet:
No.
Nope. Mine was caused by lax sanitation by some hospital worker while I was hospitalized overnight one time. That was the cause and effect. Nothing to do with GMO food.
MRSA never goes away once you have it in your system. You just control the outbreaks with antibiotics. Most health-care workers carry it in their systems, it is not contagious unless the person has an open sore.
Wrong!!! - MRSA can most definitely does completely leave your system. It is also far more contagious than you are indicating and can be spread through any physical contact with a contaminated person or surface. There is no requirement that the person you get MRSA from have an open sore, or even know that they have MRSA for that matter. It can take as much as ten days from the time a person is initially infected and when symptoms begin to develop. Obviously, contact with an open sore of a person who is infected greatly increases the likelihood that they will pas the disease to you, this is not the only transmission method. This is why it is recommended that people who have MRSA infections wash their hands frequently and use a hand sanitizer in order to reduce the risk of contaminating surfaces or passing MRSA along to other people. This is because the infected person can get the bacteria on their skin simply by sneezing and having some of the spray get on their hands. MRSA can be treated with a number of different oral or IV antibiotics depending on the severity of the infections and the health of the particular patient. MRSA is caused by a bacteria and once the infection is gone it is completely out of your system, it does lay dormant in your system like herpes or some other viruses.
Not true JS and TJ...some folks turn into carriers. The staph colonizes them and the person is no longer "infected". They have no clinical disease or symptoms. But they carry this bug possibly for a lifetime. The primary site that MRSA harbors is the nasal passages in carriers. That is why hospitals now screen a number of patients prior to procedures like surgery or admissions to highly susceptible patient populations like CCU/ICU's. This is done by either PCR (genetic) testing or chromagar plating to identify them as soon as possible. Than isolation or precautions are taken on the procedures like prophylactic antibiotics. Most MRSA's are down to one and if lucky, two antibiotics and that usually is an aminoglycocide. Specifically Vancomycin. IV only.
Vancomycin, Cubicin and Zyvox are all used to treat MRSA. Vancomycin is not an aminoglycoside (tobramycin and gentamicin are). Aminoglycosides, Rifampin (a pill) and doxycycline (also a pill) are sometimes used in treating some MRSA. MRSA is ubiquitous (not only that it's everywhere:-) Everyone has Staph of some type growing on their skin. Sometimes it is MRSA and sometimes not. Health care providers are exposed to MRSA a lot and are more likely to carry it because they are exposed so often. There are degrees of resistance even among MRSAs and MRSEs (methicillin resistant staph epidermis) and some are very resistant to antibiotics.
One way to try to avoid MRSA/MRSE is to keep counters, tables and other surfaces clean. This is not that hard to do but even in hospitals it is often overlooked. I once saw the head of a cleaning crew take a rubber floor mat off the floor and put it on a counter in order to clean the floor! Rubbing alcohol, isopropyl, or a weak bleach solution kills Staph, including resistant Staph, on surfaces. If you stay in a motel/hotel use alcohol to clean the counters before putting in items on them.
Clearing Staph from human skin is another matter entirely. If one family member has MRSA every other family member has been exposed to it and probably has it. MRSA is common in dialysis units as well as ICUs or anywhere else there is a patient population that frequently receives antibiotics.
My daughter carries it in her system, when she gets an outbreak she is on a combination of antibiotics. She washes her hands incessantly as well as her kitchen and work surfaces. When the new baby is born it may be born C-section to protect the baby. She works in health care, she got it when she worked in a nursing home...
Hey folks,
What happend if AIDES kills so many of the people who get infected? did AIDES have an effesct on MRSA spread?.
Sincerely,
verong
I contacted MRSA recently because of a very simple scratch on my ear. That became severely infected...twice. It spread to my lower stomach area. I woke up one day and had these terrible open sores and blister like sores on my stomach. It was painful. I work in a nursing home and a few of the residents have MRSA. I wash my hands so much.....and take 2 showers a day and I still ended up with it. It was horrible and do not wish it on anyone. I had to have 3 rounds of antibiotics to get rid of it. But just so everyone knows this....you can easily get it thru the gym or a supermarket. It is easy to become in contact with it no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Also....they ..CDC does not have the accurate records on how many people get MRSA. Believe me...I was shocked to hear I had it. Next time you visit someone in a hospital or a nursing home....just know there are cases of MRSA that you don't know about in there.
Mrsa is some evil stuff. You even mention that where I work and they send you straight home. I hope they get this stuff under control.
Don't hold your breath Tommy.
The main cause of MRSA, VRE, and other multidrug resistant organisms is the over use, and abuse of antibiotics by everyone with a sniffle. Which 90% of the time is a virus and antibiotics are useless. That caused wide spread mutations in these organisms to the point nearly all antibiotic classes, and their modes of operation were essentially ineffective. What you have to realize is the replication rate of most bacteria. e.coli is a good example. Most e.coli strains replicate every 20 minutes. Do some math and look at the exponential rate of growth of just 10 single organisms. Now multiply that by the number of mutations caused by the abuse of antibiotics. There is your cause. That, with very limited research and development of newer, different action antibiotics and you have a pretty major crisis on your hands. There are bugs out there that are resistant to everything. And it is getting worse all the time with more and more developing.
I ended up with MRSA and it was thru a small, little scratch on my ear. I work in a nursing home and there were a few cases of MRSA. The CDC does not require any tracking of MRSA and the records are not accurate. It was painful and required 2 rounds of antibiotics at first until it came back.... It started on my ear and spread to my lower abdomen. I literally woke up one day and had open sores on my lower abdomen. Went to the ER and they didn't do much about it. It took and Infectious Disease doctor to help along with a wound care doctor. A few of the open sores turned black and painful!!!!!!!!! I also used raw, unfiltered honey everyday orally and an extra, third dose of antibiotics. You can contract MRSA thru the gym or a visit to the hospital or nursing home. I wash my hands a lot and take 2 showers a day and still ended up with it. I never want to go thru that again.
As I posted earlier, the attitude toward MRSA (that I've experienced anyway) is so lax that it is no wonder there is such a problem with it. I would have been furious with my doctor for not treating mine correctly to begin with but I was far too ill to advocate for myself at that time. There isn't anything that compares to trying to cope with that type of infection day in, day out, night after night with no relief. Cold sweats. Hot sweats. High fever. Low fever (95). Never-ending nausea. Exhaustion. Its misery. I finally had to get another doctor who gave me enough of the correct antibiotic for a long enough period of time to finally get rid of it and even then it took such a toll on my body that it took another year before I began to feel 'normal' again.
I contracted MRSA last summer, was no where near a hospital or gym. Actually, I'd been isolated at home, because I was unemployed (stress from that may have lowered my immune defenses). The doctor that treated me said it is common for people have some MRSA on their skin. The antibiotics I took to get rid of it had ugly side effects, but I guess it was better than dying. Nowadays, I run for the antibiotic ointment whenever I get the slightest nick on my skin. I rarely take antibiotics, so it was not caught from misuse of those drugs.
singMom, those ointments may one day be your downfall. The only thing you will accomplish is to kill off the antibiotic sensitive normal flora that actually compete with that MRSA. They actually protect you. Ever wonder why they say a kid who eats mud pies as a child has a better immune system than the prissy clean child next door? Or that a dog in your child's environment actually increases his/her immunity? Because those things pass on normal flora and build immunity. Cleaning a wound and keeping it clean may be your safer bet than an arbitrary weak broad spectrum antibiotic that does nothing to that MRSA but kills off that normal flora around it.
Also, the fact that you don't often take antibiotics doesn't protect you from resistant bacteria. Overuse increases the presence of resistant bacteria in the environment, not just the bodies of those taking antibiotics, which means you are more likely to encounter and contract a resistant strain. One person't misuse/overuse is a problem for us all.
I work in a healthcare center and MRSA is a big problem to deal with. The problem is that Hospital's are not doing what must be done to prevent the transmission . All hospital workers need to wear gloves at all times when they are in contact with patient . Once gloves are removed wash hands before leaving the room. MRSA patient should be in a room alone, no sharing rooms with someone that is not infected with MRSA. Healthcare worker's should wear proper procaution items before they enter a room where MRSA patient is. All items removed and put in to procaution bin's before you leave their room. All bed side tables should be washed down at least once a shift or more if needed. Counters and sink's should also be disinfected and cleaned after use. When you visit a person that is infected please wear proper procaution gear before you enter their room and despose gear in the proper procaution bin's before you leave the room and wash your hands. When you visit someone that's on procautions do not sit on patient's bed because your clothing will now be infected and you could take the MRSA infection home with you to spread to another family member. One more thing to remember if you visit someone who is in a hospital or nursing home, please do not visit if you are sick yourself because you could spread more infection to that person where their not so able to fight off more infections. Visit when you are feeling all better. We care about your health too!
i am a MERCER carries only, but after coming home from the hospital i got a nice rash under my armpit
cost me $100.00 to get rid of it.
it burned like crazy
i had back lumber surgery and the rash showed up 4 days later -not fun
i hope they can solve this problem quickly
thank god i never had another rash again
Draw a conclusion here. We had a very weak flu season and a very weak infection rate for MRSA due to the abnormal heat we are experiencing. Just a free thinker here. Glad to hear other opinions.
I contracted MRSA in Nov. of 2010. Thankfully, someone recognized it and I went to the hospital. I spent 4 days in the hospital and another 3 weeks in rehab receiving vancomycin every 12 hours. The best thing we can do against these 'super bugs' are to 1. curb the use of all antibiotics 2. when your taking antibiotics, FINISH the PRESCRIPTION! NEVER EVER STOP taking it until all the meds are GONE! Don't ever give your antibiotics to anyone else, just because they don't want/can't go to the doctor... Pay for them to go if they don't have the $$$. Bacteria is growing stronger because it's becoming immune to the antibiotics that used to work (when you stop taking meds before finishing the entire prescription, you give the bacteria an 'edge' - it comes back stronger and immune to whatever you were fighting it with).
Some of what I've read in these posts are basically true, but there a lot of misconceptions about MRSA. Over the past two and a half years I've had at least 25-30 major outbreaks of MRSA in different parts of my body. I've been to countles doctors as well as infectious disease clinics. There is no cure for MRSA and there isn't a magic antibiotic that will wipe it out quickly. I don't know where I first contracted the disease, the gym was the most likely place, because in most gyms the equipment is not adequately sanitized. The benches, arm curl benches and bench press are in constant use and I have yet to see anyone get up from a bench and use disinfectant spray to wipe their sweat off the bench for the next in line to use it, nor have I seen the next person in line use disinfectant spray to wipe the bench down before he/she uses it. Of all the MRSA infections I've had the majority of them have been on my lower legs and forearms. One infection in particular on my lower leg "ate" the flesh to the point where I could begin to see bone. I've become fairly good at predicting when an infection starts because of the ones I've had, a high fever, 104-104.5, has always preceded the majority of the swelling that will occur. I've been precscribed the majority of the antibiotics that have found to be even the least bit effective. Vancomycin has been said to be the most effective, but it's also one of the most expensive. About four years ago I was prescribed 20 pills of the oral Vancomycin and it cost $1800! I've had to go to the I.V. Clinic at my local hospital numerous times for a twice a day, hour long I.V. drip. The hospital used primarily Cipro as the antibiotic for the drip, which for some people has a side effect of relentless itching, almost to the point where some people have come in with their skin shredded from their scratching. Benadryl usually helps though. The last infectious disease clinic I went to were at a loss as to what to try next on the infections I get. I've used the special soap they've prescribed as well as the ointment that you place in each nostril. The nasal passages are a breeding ground for the MRSA bacteria. The sad part for those who are unfortunate enough to be susceptible to infections is that because of the relatively low number of deaths attributed to MRSA, there hasn't been a lot of research dollars that are being spent trying to find either a cure or a more successful method to treat MRSA. Most of the money available is being spent on diseases that have a higher number of fataliies or affects the most people. The last infectious disease clinic I mentioned, that were a a loss as to how best to treat my recurring infections, their last piece of advice to me was to take a bath in bleach every couple of days which will kill the MRSA bacteria, but will leave you with almost lizard like skin!!
CounterPointer: Interesting observation. A lot of inexperienced doctors will give antibiotics to patients with flu or other viral infections. This does nothing for the virus but it increases the risk of development of resistant bacteria of all types.
You have my sympathy. I always expected mine to go away and it did eventually but it was a battle against medical apathy at the beginning. A shrug of the shoulders and 5 pills once a day. All it did was make it more resistant. I didn't know that it could become chronic as it has in your case. I'm sorry you have to live with this misery. Are you still able to work? Have you applied for disability? How has this affected your family? I have one son who got so "fed up" with me being sick all the time that he finally disowned me. Yep. Right before he started med school. Oh the irony. I pity his future patients.
This is great to hear for a safety professional (semi-retired) like myself who worked on biosafety much of the last few years of my career. I have been around health and safety research and applied science/engineering for 30 years, and finally concluded that our biggest hazard and catastrophic risk issue has to do with biological and infectious disease issues (outside of an earth threatening asteriod impact). With an undergrad degree in biological sciences I have serious respect for the mutating ability of pathogens which is giving our infectious disease experts a humongous challenge to prepare for epidemics and pandemics. We have so many things to direct our money to for research that this area gets neglected I feel more than it should have historically. The old saying in environmental health is that sometimes the world needs a scare to take something serious and put enough effor into stopping the problem...with infectious diseases and mutations to deal with, lack of funding and effort into biological protection could be the final mistake mankind makes if the organism is really an ultimate plague.
Amen, Jon Jones. People must stop using those gawd-awful hand sanitizers, they also wipe out only susceptible bacteria and help select for resistant species (not to mention that triclosan is an endocrine disruptor) and could be harming you, your kids and wildlife. Learn good hand-washing techniques; consider everyplace to be contaminated and wash hands frequently; don't let your kid crawl around on the floor, especially in doctor's offices and any other public place. Get healthy: that means good nutrition, good exercise and 8 hours of sleep every night. Do not short change yourself on sleep, it is critical to your immune system and your healing ability. These super bugs are the result of our idea that we can make the world risk-free - there is no such thing but we can stop increasing the evolution of more harmful bacteria with some inexpensive common sense.
Let's remember. Bacteria kill children today because many years ago Eve scrumped an apple.
Nunavut: alcohol based hand sanitizers are not as good as soap, but they are effective against MRSA and if you are in a supermarket or use elevators or public places where you cannot wash immediately then they are the next best thing. They do not kill some other bacteria, like Campylobacter, which can make you really sick but they do kill MRSA which is more prevalent.
Agreed. Topical antibiotics aren't really the threat here. Hand sanitizer is typically an alcohol and triclosan, neither of which particularly contributes to the origin of methicillin resistance. Antibiotic creams are generally bacitracin zinc and polymixin B; again, neither contribute to MRSA and neither are generally used as systemic treatments except in patients who have exhausted other alternatives.
MRSA might be decreasing but in UK hospitals at least it is being replaced by other infections like E.coli:
... you simply can't win!
MRSA might have decreased but in UK hospitals at least it is being replace by E.coli you simply can't win!
As anti-biotic problems go up and down ,it's like a yo-yo affect in hospitals,cleaning of rooms and washing of hands,why do some people get lax in these situations is a cause. Oil of oregano and olive leaf extract should be used as nothing has developed a resistance to these over 2,000 years.
Tom I totally agree that basic sanitation is the best way to fight MRSA, but I disagree with homeopathic remedies. We've known about that sort of treatment for thousands of years, but the fundamental shift in injury risk that happened when we discovered penicillin should tell you something about the relative efficacy of oil of oregano versus penicillin.
Well when penicillin doesn't work just keep going up to more dangerous drugs,the change was due to ease of manufacture and immediate results ,but the increase of study by drug companies trying to tweek naturals has resulted in some amazing findings.