What is mersa and can it be cured?

Question

I just found out I know someone with this and want to know what to do?

Answer 1

What to do for your friend? Simply, they give a different antibiotic. Although methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been getting quite a bit of press within the last few years, and rightfully so, the message that is being conveyed is a bit sensationalized. While vancomycin is frequently used in many cases, especially with particularly bad infections, MRSA is quite frequently susceptible to other drugs like clindamycin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and doxycycline though not necessarily all of them at the same time. This leads to the vast majority of MRSA infections, which typically tend to be skin infections and much less popular to report in the common media, being treated without serious complication. This is not to downplay the dangers of a MRSA infection or to poo poo the need for better use of antibiotics to prevent the development of resistance in the first place, it's just to not present an overly grave picture of a MRSA infection.

Now what to do for you? In most cases whatever MRSA infection your friend is experiencing will not be directly communicable to you in the sense that if he/she has MRSA pneumonia you will not likely get MRSA pneumonia by casually being nearby. The risk is actually much more subtle than that in that, through physical contact w/ him/her, you can become *colonized* with MRSA yourself. With the bacteria now on your body or in your nostrils along with all the lovely bacteria that are normally there, you run the risk of both spreading it to someone who is seriously ill or infecting yourself should you ever become seriously ill in the near future. There are exceptions to this noncommunicable rule of thumb, though, as there have been reports of multiple members of a sports team developing simultaneous infections from shared equipment. This generally requires a fairly high degree of contact and fairly poor hygiene, however. So to keep safe yourself the general guidelines are avoid intimate personal contact with the person while sick and make sure you wash, wash, wash after every time you visit them. Seriously. The one thing that is not sensationalized is the rapid spread of this organism, and the key to stopping methicillin-resistant staph. aureus is to prevent it from becoming so common. Prevention isn’t as sexy as bazookacillin antibiotics, but it’s where all the payoff is.

Answer 2

I believe you're talking about MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). It's an antibiotic resistant bacteria that can cause pretty nasty infections in certain situations. To answer your question, even though it is resistant to certain antibiotics, there are other antibiotics available that still have an effect on MRSA. The classic antibiotic used in that case would be Vancomycin. So yes it can be "cured" albeit being more difficult than your non-antibiotic resistant Staph infection.

PS: A lot of factors go into how serious a MRSA infection becomes, ranging from whether the person is hospitalized, to age, to current health, to where the infection is located, etc. So infections can range from relatively minor to life threatening.

Answer 3

Perhaps you mean MRSA?
MRSA is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. It is a bacterial infection that is resistant to treatment with common antibiotics. This type of infection can usually be treated with uncommon antibiotics, such as vancomycin, but sometimes treatment with antibiotics can be unsuccessful, in which there is not much else doctors can do besides give supportive treatment.

Answer 4

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What is mersa and can it be cured?
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