MRSA in the USA
In the U.S.A. there are approximately 90,000 deaths per year that are related to Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) with most of those infections being of the MRSA variety, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Approximately 1 in 20 hospital patients will contract HAI. The cost of treating MRSA is approximately $5 billion U.S. healthcare dollars.
Besides hospitals MRSA infections also occur in nursing homes and dialysis centers because individuals like the elderly and those who have weakened immune systems are susceptible to infections.
Conditions that contribute to the spread of MRSA are: crowded living conditions, poor hygiene, contaminated items or surfaces and skin that has cuts or open wounds.
Hospitals and nursing homes are not the only places to contract MRSA, any place where humans congregate come into contact with each other and share personal items will be a ripe place to contract MRSA. Places like gyms, schools, prisons are also high risk areas for coming into contact with someone who has MRSA or the bacteria that can expose you to the infection.
In April of 2007, USA Today ran an article about some U.S. hospitals that were implementing a “search and destroy” program in order to combat HA-MRSA (hospital-acquired MRSA). To institute a MRSA program at a hospital generally runs somewhere around $600,000 to $1 million dollar a year. Each infection found will cost about $30,000 to treat. The investment of $600,000 for the hospital to test is a small price to pay for the decreased risk to human lives.
A previously undetected mode of transmission for the MRSA infection has been identified as that of sexual contact according to a 1/11/07 report in USA Today, that scientists at Columbia University Medical Center, reported that they have 3 cases in which the bacteria known as community- associated MRSA was passed between sexual partners. It has been known that MRSA is transmitted by direct skin-to-skin contact so the findings were not all that surprising.
MRSA spread through sexual contact has been seen in the U.S.A. as reported by emergency room doctors at Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia.
In the U.S.A. it has been discovered that the MRSA infection can be passed between horses, dogs and cats and the humans that come into contact with them. The infection can be passed back and forth between animal and human and back again. It is important to isolate those who have the infection and treat them before reintroducing them with others again. Routine infection control procedures should be in effect that include careful use of antibiotics, and through hand washing between touching animals.
