NEWS - Drug resistant skin infections becoming more common

[Guest guest]

Drug Resistant Skin Infections Becoming More Common

BOSTON (Reuters) - A drug-resistant " superbug " previously found almost

exclusively in hospitals is becoming more common in the community and must

be aggressively treated, two teams of experts reported on Wednesday.

Staphylococcus aureus, or staph, infections that are resistant to

methicillin and similar drugs can now be put into the category of

flesh-eating bacteria, the experts report in the New England Journal of

Medicine.

Doctors need to be aware of this and switch to different antibiotics at the

first sign of trouble.

" The alarm does need to be raised to people and clinicians that if you have

a staph infection and it's not getting better, you'd better go back to your

doctor, " said Fridkin, a epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, who led one study.

" The bad news is that staph causes a lot of skin infections and they've

always been difficult to treat, " he added. " Now we have a staph that's

biologically different and resistant to first-line antibiotics. "

For the complete story, please see:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews & storyID=8106694

Not an MD

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org