A surprisingly common bacteria is becoming the new plague ? with outbreaks among healthy teens and gym enthusiasts around the Baltimore region. The problem is only likely to get worse, doctors say, as the culprit, staphylococcus aureus, adapts to more forms of antibiotics.
Whether it?s toxic shock syndrome, linked to the misuse of tampons in the 1980s, or the Asian flu epidemic, which killed 34,000 Americans in 1968 and 1969, staphylococcus aureus was the culprit, said Dr. Barry Eisenstein, Harvard University School of Medicine professor and one of Baltimore?s newest residents.
“What we?re now seeing is something that is worrisome, not because staph has become more virulent, but because the organism that once was pretty susceptible to a wide variety of antibiotics has now become resistant,” Eisenstein told The Examiner.
Since 2002, seven instances of vancomycin-resistant staph have been documented in the United States. These bacteria have not responded to any antibiotic treatment and may be the harbinger ofinfections to come, Eisenstein said.
The strain, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), is the most common form of staph infection now, as the culprit in two-thirds of cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bug also resists antibiotics including methicillin oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin.
Hospitalized people with weakened immune systems or undergoing surgery or dialysis have been the primary victims in the past, the CDC states. The disease kills nearly 19,000 people a year in the United States alone.
But in the last few years, doctors are seeing more people walk into the hospital already infected with or carrying MRSA, Eisenstein said. And these strains tend to be more virulent.
“Now that we are doing so many surgical procedures on people to drastically improve their lives, we?re invading the skin or breaching the normal skin defenses more often,” Eisenstein said.
Our food supply might be part of the problem as well, according to a new study published in Veterinary Microbiology. Canadian researchers found MRSA prevalent in pig farms and pig farmers, pointing to animal agriculture as a source of the deadly bacteria.
An estimated nine million Canadian hogs will be imported into the United States this year.
