The staphylococcus “staph” infection, incredibly difficult to treat, usually shows up only in hospitals and other health-care settings. (Lending support to that old joke that if you want to avoid getting sick, stay away from hospitals, which are full of sick people.) In such settings, patients with open wounds or tubes can get the malady, which can cause very serious health problems. Lately, however, doctors have noted that a resistant strain of the infection is appearing in the public at-large, specifically among children, inmates, and athletes. The New York Times reports:
In a study of patients in Baltimore, the Atlanta area and Minnesota, researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 17 percent of the drug-resistant staph infections had no apparent links to health-care settings.
“Close to one-fifth of what used to be a hospital-specific problem is now a community problem. And that’s a large number,” said Dr. Scott K. Fridkin, an epidemiologist at the centers. “We didn’t think it would be anywhere near that high when we started the study.” The findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Nathan Novak at 12:08 pm
