MRSA – It’s Not Just a Hospital Problem
Commonly associated with hospitals, MRSA isn’t just a problem for patients.
This week a US family has sued a Suffolk County school district for $12 million, claiming that the district had been negligent and that this negligence had led to their 15-year-old child contracting a potentially life threatening MRSA infection.
One of five high-school wrestlers to contract MRSA, the teenager underwent emergency surgery and spent six days in hospital. According to the attorney for the claimant, John Ray, these infections were caused by poorly sanitised and maintained wrestling mats - “From our investigation, the Rocky Point School did not service or maintain the wrestling mats in any sanitary way, for years, In fact, there’s information that they did not flip the mats to clean them on the other side — for seven years.”
When it comes to sports, 56% of infections are infections of the skin - unsurprising when you consider the skin-to-skin contact, heavy sweating, equipment sharing and open cuts that are routine in contact sport; furthermore infections are most common among recreational and student athletes.
A quick Google search brings up at least two other MRSA outbreaks in US high schools that are directly related to team sports, two of which were directly related to the use of school equipment.
Staphylococcus aureus is a common bacteria and one that you can often find on people’s skin, in their nostrils and even throats. It isn’t until the bacteria break through the skin that it can actually cause any problems for you; however once it has broken through the skin it can cause anything from a boil to life threatening blood poisoning or endocarditis (infection of the heart).
MRSA is a methicillin resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus and causes infections that can be much harder to treat.
The problem isn’t that the equipment was exposed to MRSA, but rather that these high school outbreaks could have been easily avoided. Proper hygiene processes and the use of sanitizers or disinfectants on equipment between uses can help eliminate the problem and incorporating antimicrobial additives in this equipment would ensure that any bacteria missed in these hygiene practises aren’t able to spread or survive. The first obvious plus of this approach? It won’t cost you $12 million.
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