MRSA Infections Double in Number Over Just Half a Decade

A statistical report compiled by experts at the University of Chicago Medicine and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) shows that the incidence of infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has more than doubled in just five years.

According to the researchers, academic medical centers in the United States have been hit with an avalanche of new cases in 2008, twice as many as recorded in 2003. The full paper appears in the August issue of the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

An interesting aspect of the research is that investigators do not believe the number to be representative of the actual situation in the field, Science Blog reports.

“But we can say with some assurance that this correction gives us a more accurate lower bound for how many cases [of MRSA] there actually are. What’s clear from our data is that cases were on the rise in academic hospitals in 2003 to 2008,” the team says.