As temperatures drop and flu season inches closer, a “superbug” has put the Northeast in a frenzy, already claiming lives in New York and Connecticut, though healthcare officials say the bacteria poses no more threat now than it has in recent years.
Although Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, a bacterial form of staph infection, is resistant to many antibiotics, including penicillin, it is curable, said Boston University School of Public Health epidemiology professor Dr. C. Robert Horsburgh Jr.
“The bug itself isn’t more likely to invade you. It is just harder to get rid of it,” Horsburgh said. “We have drugs to treat it. The doctor just has to give you the right drug.”
MRSA is responsible for more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and nearly 19,000 deaths each year, according to a 2007 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study concluded MRSA’s mortality rate is higher than that of the AIDS virus.
While it has garnered much attention recently, MRSA was discovered in 1961 and has affected the population for a number of years, Horsburgh said.
“I’m a little mystified why this is coming out now,” he said. “This is a problem that has been around since the last decade.”
MRSA spreads most prevalently in healthcare facilities like hospitals and nursing homes, where 85 percent of cases have been reported because patients or residents with already low immune systems are in close proximity to one another, said Committee to Reduce Infectious Deaths founder Dr. Betsy McCaughey.
The bacteria can spread quickly through interactions like handshakes and shared objects like keyboards or basketballs, she said.
MRSA develops when bacteria enters an open wound, and its symptoms vary from skin boils to fatal pneumonia.
The nickname “superbug,” labeled by the media, is inaccurate, said CDC spokeswoman Nicole Coffin.
“There is treatment that is available, and sometimes it doesn’t even include antibiotics,” Coffin said. “Even [for] the life-threatening MRSA infections, there are powerful antibiotics to treat it.”
In an effort to prevent the spread of the flu and other bacteria and viruses on campus, BU Student Health Services has offered a handful of flu shots throughout the fall, said SHS Director Dr. David McBride.
McBride said the flu and MRSA, which pose no more threat this year than any others, can be prevented by simple practices like washing hands.
“There is no hysteria, as far as I know,” he said. “Neither the flu nor MRSA are particularly worrisome.”