GPs on alert for killer MRSA strain in nurseries, schools and
the gym
Last updated at 17:52pm on 21.01.08
Add your
view
Family doctors are being put on high alert for cases of a flesh-eating strain
of MRSA that thrives in nurseries, classrooms and gyms.
GPs will for the first time be given detailed guidelines on how to diagnose
and treat the highly infectious bug, thought to be even deadlier than the
version sweeping through hospitals.
The risk is so serious that the Health Protection Agency and the British
Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy have come together to draw up the advice,
designed to stop the bug running riot across the UK as it has in the U.S.
Killer bug: GPs are being warned community-acquired MRSA can be
caught in nurseries, schools and gyms
Unlike normal MRSA, communityacquired MRSA produces a flesh-eating poison
that can rapidly eat away at the lungs, killing within hours.
The toxin also destroys infection-fighting white blood cells, putting fit,
young, healthy people - including children and babies - at threat.
Already rampant in the U.S., communityacquired MRSA infects more than 150
Britons a year and the figure is rising by more than 30 per cent a year. Some
experts also believe the true scale has not been fully reported.
Professor Mark Enright, a superbug expert from Imperial College London, said
it was possible that many cases of community-acquired MRSA were going
undetected, making the true toll much higher than the 159 cases reported to the
HPA in 2006.
He said: "Unless GPs know what to look for, we won't know we have a
community-acquired MRSA problem until it's a very big problem.
"In the U.S. it has gone from being something confined to small communities
such as drug users and prisons and sports teams to become a problem in children,
young adults and the general population.
"It is the most common cause of infectious disease in people going into
A&E in the U.S. We don't think it is anything like as common over here but
we don't really know because we are not looking for it."
So far in the UK, the bug has killed at least eight in the last three years,
including a ten-year-old girl and an 18-year-old Marine. The bug can enter the
bloodstream through cuts and grazes, so children are particularly at risk.
Crowded nurseries and classrooms are ideal breeding grounds, as are gyms and
changing rooms where the infection can be caught simply from sharing towels.
Symptoms range from the superficial but painful, such as boils, to fatal
blood poisoning.
Patients can die within 24 hours of spread to the lungs due to a form of
pneumonia in which the flesh is rapidly eaten away by a poison - the
Panton-Valentine Leukocidin, or PVL - produced by the bug, which also destroys
white blood cells and thus the body's immune system.
Fifty per cent of victims with necrotising pneumonia die within the first 24
hours.
Community-acquired MRSA is on the march in the U.S. because it is becoming
resistant to overused antibiotics.
Experts fear that could also happen in the UK. Doctors and scientists are
anxious to prevent community-acquired MRSA from becoming as devastating as the
version caught in hospitals.
An estimated 300,000 Britons a year pick up superbugs such as MRSA while
being treated in hosbecomingpital and at least 5,000 die.
Professor Dilip Nathwani, chairman of the group putting together the
guidelines, said: "We want to learn from the more typical hospital-acquired MRSA
strain which has become endemic in our hospitals.
"If we improve diagnosis and prevention of this illness maybe we will slow
down or prevent it from endemic in our communities.
The guidelines, due to be published in March, will advise on how to spot and
treat the infection, which is often initially overlooked, with GPs mistakenly
thinking telltale boils and abscesses are caused by other, less sinister
infections.
Professor Nathwani said: "If someone has recurrent infections of the skin, I
would encourage them to ask their GP, 'Could this be communityacquired MRSA?'
Don't be shy."
Patients found to be infected could be given antibiotics, which are effective
when given early, and, if necessary, admitted to hospital.
To prevent infection outside hospital, people should make sure all cuts and
grazes are properly cleaned and covered.
They should also avoid sharing towels and toothbrushes and ensure any gym
they use is cleaned thoroughly.
Richard Campbell-Smith: 18-year-old contracted
community-acquired MRSA by grazing a leg on gorse while on army training in
Devon
• Richard Campbell-Smith was a fit and healthy 18-year-old Marine when he
caught community acquired MRSA by grazing a leg on gorse while on exercise.
He died two days after the lethal infection entered his bloodstream.
He was 28 weeks into his 32-week induction at the Commando Training Centre at
Lympstone, Devon, when tragedy stuck. He and other recruits had spent the week
on a rigorous training programme.
He scratched his legs while running on Woodbury Common in late 2004. He was
soon struggling to walk and had to be admitted to the base's medical centre.
The infection spread rapidly, causing major organs to fail, and two days
later he was found collapsed by his bed. He was taken to hospital but died
shortly after arrival.
Topic Options
Post Options
Thanks(0)
