Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics. These antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. Staph infections, including MRSA, occur most frequently among persons in hospitals and healthcare facilities (such as nursing homes and dialysis centers) who have weakened immune systems.
MRSA infections that occur in otherwise healthy people who have not been recently (within the past year) hospitalized or had a medical procedure (such as dialysis, surgery, catheters) are known as community-associated (CA)-MRSA infections. These infections are usually skin infections, such as abscesses, boils, and other pus-filled lesions.
According to scientists in Britain the battle against super bugs such as MRSA could be won with steam cleaning.
Latest figures for MRSA show there was a 6.4% fall in the number of cases of blood stream infection reported to the Health Protection Agency from January - March 2007.
It infiltrates hospitals as microscopic spores. Its defences are so strong it can resist most antibiotics. And it kills three times as many people every year as MRSA. But scientists at The University of Nottingham are amassing an arsenal of weapons in preparation for counter offensive against the most deadly of hospital superbugs.
Over 180 international scientific experts will meet for the next three days near Lucca, Italy, to discuss state-of-the-art advances in infectious diseases transmitted from animals to man, known as zoonoses.
A secure, Web-based reporting network that lets facilities track infections associated with health care is now available to all health care facilities in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced.
According to the Center for Disease Control in the United States (CDC), MRSA (Methicillin-Associated Staphylococcus Aureus) infections continue to be a concern for hospitals worldwide and now account for more than 50% of hospital-acquired Staphylococcus aureus infections.
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) will release the results of the first nationwide study on the prevalence of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in U.S. healthcare facilities.
Arpida Ltd. has announced that it has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a Phase II trial with intravenous iclaprim in the treatment of patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) or healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP) suspected or confirmed to be due to Gram-positive pathogens.
A simple video-based awareness programme significantly improved hand washing among family members visiting sick children in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, according to research in the June issue of the UK-based Journal of Clinical Nursing.
The incidence of antibiotic-resistant staph infections associated with being acquired in the community and not in health care institutions increased almost seven-fold in Chicago's Cook County Hospital system between 2000 and 2005, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Researchers in the U.S. say that it is not just in hospitals that the so-called "superbugs" present a problem.
Academics from the Universities of the West of England and Bristol have found that faeces from healthy people and those with infectious diarrhoea differ significantly in their chemical composition and could be used to diagnose quickly diseases such as Clostridium difficile (C. Diff.).
Up to 25,000 people may die needlessly each year due to the failure to prevent blood clots known as venous thromboembolisms (VTE) in UK hospitals, say experts in this week's BMJ.
A product designed by two entrepreneurial medical graduates could soon be helping to reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA.
The sore on Catrina Hurlburt's leg simply wouldn't heal. Complications from a 2002 car accident left Hurlburt, a borderline diabetic, with recurring cellulitis and staph infections.
University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA - by treating their foot ulcers with maggots.
3M and Gen-Probe have announced that the companies have formed an exclusive worldwide collaboration to develop and commercialize rapid, easy-to-use nucleic acid tests to detect certain dangerous healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
In 1928, Alexander Fleming opened the door to treating bacterial infections when he stumbled upon the first known antibiotic in a Penicillium mold growing in a discarded experiment.
Latest figures from the Health Protection Agency show there were 55,681 cases of Clostridium difficile infection reported in patients aged 65 years and above in England in 2006.
The larger and busier, an NHS hospital is, the higher the MRSA infection rate, research from the Nottingham University Business School has revealed.
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