More About Staph / Infections

Cynthia Richesin, School Nurse

     In order to protect both our own families and our communities, we need to understand more about the Staph infections and their strains.  As most of us have recently either read or seen on TV, Staphylococcus Aureas (Staph) is often found on human skin.  It is commonly found in the nares (nostrils), groin, and axilla areas.  These are warm moist environments.  By the 1960's the antibiotics penicillin was widely used to treat infections that arose from Staph.  This widespread use led Staph organisms to build resistance to penicillin, so the antibiotic methicillin was developed.  Soon after that new strains of the organism, which were resistant to methicillin, were found in hospital settings.  These were called methicillin - resistant Staph Aureus or MRSA for short.  The only way to diagnose the strain of staph or other bacteria is by swabbing the wound for a culture.  This takes 24 - 48 hours to get results.  Doctors may go ahead and start antibiotics in case it is MRSA, but may discontinue them if culture is negative.  This also may lead to false reports by parents.
     Of late, the media have been reporting about MRSA found in healthy children and adults.  Some of these reports are about a genetically distinct strain of MRSA that has emerged in our communities among healthy individuals.  In reality these strains have been around since the late 1990's.  This strain is called community-acquired MRSA or CA-MRSA for short.  The individuals who acquire CA-MRSA have not had contact with health care facilities.
     The hospital-acquired MRSA has a gene that resists many antibiotics, but these strains do not multiply as fast.  The CA-NRSA strains are not as antibiotic resistant and therefore more kinds of antibiotics can be used for treatment.  But, the ca-mrsa strains are more virulent and multiply faster, so it is important that we pay attention to any bumps, abrasions, or cuts on our skin and watch for warmth, swelling, pustular lesions, increased redness and pain.  Systemically, a person may have fever (which always should be checked with a thermometer, not just our hand), chills, night sweats and general malaise.
    Generally if we wash our hands often with soap and water or use an alcohol based hand sanitizer; keep cuts, abrasions, bumps clean with soap and water and cover them, then we are not as likely to get any type of staph infection.  If we have a healthy immune system, at least our bodies are much more able to fight infection.
     Since staph is found on our skin, in the droplets form the sneeze or cough of a person with nasal colonization and can live on inanimate objects for hours to days, our best protection is to:
     1.  Wash hands often.
     2.  Keep skin intact and if cuts occur, wash the area, dry, then cover it.
     3. Observe cuts or bumps several times a day.  Report children's cuts to
         parents and teach children to show their cuts to their parents.
         If a red bump does not have any of the signs or symptoms or other
         unusual appearance, then the student generally does not need to be
         sent to the nurse.  The parent needs to keep it clean, covered and
         watch it.
     4.  Maintain a healthy immune system.   This is really important so that our
          body can fight infection!
          Different foods in our diet have various functions in our immune  
          system.