MRSA On the Rise in US Children

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is posing increasing challenges to the US Health Department, which sees a rise in the number of US children infected with the very resistant bug each year. Health officials warn that the incidence of the bug is on the rise, and that most cases see the contamination of the head and the neck with the pathogen. MRSA raised such concerns because of the fact that it started manifesting itself in the general population, whereas, until recently, it only affected hospital patients, who already had a weak immune system.

Emory University scientist Dr. Steven Sobol, the leader of a new study that appears in the Archives of Otalaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery medical journal, says that the nation-wide increase in cases of otherwise healthy children infected with the bug is alarming. He urges physicians and doctors to exercise extreme care in handing out antibiotics, so as to prevent further mutations in the bacterial strain of the pathogen.

The bacteria usually resides in skin and soft tissues, and is picked up via regular contact. But now, Sobol says that the new cases, which feature outbreaks in the throat, nose, ears, or the sinuses, are not to be taken lightly. He cautions that this form of the disease is very dangerous, especially for the little ones. Some strains of the bacteria can cause widespread infection (sepsis), the toxic shock syndrome, and necrotizing ("flesh-eating") pneumonia.

The researcher was able to determine the scale of the infection by analyzing over 5 years of medical data, spanning from 2001 to 2006, which dealt with the cases of some 21,009 children, aged 1 to 18, and which had MRSA infections in their heads or necks. The presence and handling of Staphylococcus aureus was assessed in some 300 hospitals across the United States, as well.

Sobol learned that most of the children, well over 60 percent, had acquired their infections outside the hospitals, which raised a serious question mark as to the spread method employed at the moment by the disease. Most cases of MRSA manifested themselves in the ears of the patients, and proved extremely resilient to antibiotics designed specifically to target them.