Quote of note:
In recent years, the potentially deadly infection has been detected in jail inmates, sexually active gay men and professional athletes.
The latest study, conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several other institutions, confirmed that the organism was now circulating widely in the general population.
Other than professional athletes, this is the same pattern shown at the start of the AIDS epidemic.
Perilous Bug Is Creeping Onto the Streets
Once confined to hospitals, drug-resistant and potentially deadly staph infections are rising among general population, study finds.
By Charles Piller
Times Staff Writer
April 7, 2005
Drug-resistant staph infections, once largely confined to hospitals, are far more common in the general population than previously thought, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study examined more than 1,600 cases of the infection caused by a strain of Staphylococcus aureus in Baltimore, Atlanta and Minnesota. Nearly one-fourth of those patients required hospitalization.
In recent years, the potentially deadly infection has been detected in jail inmates, sexually active gay men and professional athletes.
The latest study, conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several other institutions, confirmed that the organism was now circulating widely in the general population.
The CDC research found that children younger than 2 were at higher risk, which could be because children get more cuts and scrapes. Blacks in Atlanta were found to be at higher risk than whites, the researchers found.
"There was a remarkable association of a large number of cases, all caused by this drug- resistant strain," said Dr. Henry F. Chambers, a staph expert at San Francisco General Hospital who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.
