Drug-resistant bacteria on increase in U.S.: study

Chelsea Parris
Nov. 24 2009
3:04am

This article states that cases of a drug-resistant bacterial infection known as MRSA have risen by 90 percent since 1999, and they are increasingly being acquired outside hospitals. They found two new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were circulating in patients and they are different from the strains normally seen in hospitals. "We found during 1999-2006 that the percentage of S. aureus infections resistant to methicillin increased more than 90 percent, or 10 percent a year, in outpatients admitted to U.S. hospitals, this increase was caused almost entirely by community-acquired MRSA strains, which increased more than 33 percent annually,” researchers said. MRSA is now entrenched in U.S. hospitals. It was also known to be circulating in the community but it was not clear whether patients were carrying the infections out of hospitals, or the other way around. It is possible to treat MRSA but doctors need to know straight away so they start patients on the correct antibiotics.
Unfortunately after reading this article I am not too surprised. There seems to be so many infections going around and new necessary precautions to take lately. I am a bit sick of it. Every day there is going to be some new bacteria or infection floating around waiting to attack you. Obviously one should take precaution, but I am not going to worry about such things. I am happy that research has become so advanced that they are quickly coming up with medicines to treat or cure these new bacteria.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5AN0N020091124