Community-associated MRSA on the rise in U.S. hopitals

According to a new study, community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) is on the rise in U.S. hospitals. From 1999 to 2006, there has been an astonishing seven-fold growth in the new community-associated strain CA-MRSA in hospital outpatient units over the last decade, according to new research.

The researchers discovered two new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus were circulating in patients and they are unlike to the strains commonly seen in hospitals. This increase jeopardizes the safety of patients because health care professionals and patients travel often between a hospital’s inpatient and outpatient units, the authors warned.

The rapid rate of infection spread endangers inpatient settings as well, according to the December issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases, which summarizes findings from 300 microbiology labs serving U.S. 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,” the authors wrote in the report published in the December journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. “This increase was caused almost entirely by community-acquired MRSA strains, which increased more than 33 percent annually.”

MRSA is the most common cause of hospital-acquired infections. Other places where it can be picked up from are schools, fitness centers and similar areas. Symptoms can range from abscesses to bloodborne infections that can kill quickly.