Fears are mounting about a strain of antibiotic-resistant staph infections, but a spokesman with the State Health Department says we shouldn’t panic.
Eddie Hedrick with the Health Department wants to raise awareness about how to prevent staph infections, especially those resistant to the most common antibiotics. Hedrick emphasizes that: the "most common" antibiotics. A boy died in Virginia due to an invasive strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Hedrick points out there are two different types of MRSA, one normally acquired in a hospital and another acquired in the community; two distinctly different organisms.
The community-acquired form is the one that causes the most worries. Hedrick says residents need to be aware of MRSA, not fear it. He advises common sense steps to prevent such infections; steps such as washing hands, treating and covering open wounds, and seeking medical attention if the wound doesn’t heal. Hedrick says other antibiotics have been found to be effective in fighting staph infections resistant to methicillin. He acknowledges that if left untreated, such staph infections can become very serious.
Hedrick won’t call these "superbugs", because he says that implies they can’t be stopped and he insists they can.
Hedrick has written about this strain of antibiotic-resistant staph infections on the Health Department Web site under the title MRSA Infections .
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