Flesh-eating strain of MRSA spreads to schools and gyms

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It is thought young people and gym users are more susceptible to community MRSA

The MRSA superbug is invading homes, schools and gyms, scientists have warned.

The strain found in the community is a particular threat to young, healthy people.

It spreads more easily than the one in hospitals and, unlike normal MRSA, it produces a flesh-eating poison.

Around 40 Britons catch community-acquired MRSA each year and it has claimed at least eight lives in the last three years.

This week's New Scientist magazine warns: "We hear a lot about antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals, but the truth is that a frightening range of superbugs are lurking just about everywhere.

"They skulk around our homes, schools and at the local gym."

Robert Daum, a paediatrician at the University of Chicago's Children's Hospital and one of the first to warn of the dangers of community-acquired MRSA, said: "Everywhere it has come it has stayed and it comes to more and more places every day."

The bug is passed on through close contact and can be caught from dirty sheets, sharing towels in gyms and sharing sports kits. Symptoms range from painful boils to fatal blood poisoning.

Patients can die within 24 hours of the bug spreading to their lungs due to a form of pneumonia in which the flesh is rapidly eaten away by a poison produced by the bacteria.

While antibiotic treatment exists, the drugs need to be given early for maximum effect.

The bug has recently made its way into British hospitals, killing two patients at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent last year.

Some hospitals already screen patients due to undergo operations for MRSA, but some doctors now want all patients, and even people visiting the casualty department, to be screened for the infection.

Professor Richard James, of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at Nottingham University, said this would save hospitals money in the long-term.

The potential loss of earnings should community MRSA spread would "dwarf" the extra costs of screening to the NHS.

In Scandinavia, the battle against MRSA has already been taken into the community, with nurses sent to people's homes to treat carriers and teach them about hygiene.

Educating people about handwashing and not sharing towels has led to a drop in infections.

Danish MRSA expert Dr Robert Skov said: "If you don't fight MRSA in the community you will have a silent pool who are continuously spreading it to other people.

"Just by instructing people you can get quite far."

In Britain, the Health Protection Agency says the risk of infection with community-acquired MRSA is small, but people should make sure all cuts and grazes are properly cleaned and covered, avoid sharing towels and toothbrushes and ensure any gym they use is cleaned thoroughly.

 

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