MRSA: The Resistant Superbug

When I was young, around 10 or so, there were many things I did not understand in life.  One very important thing was the notion of getting sick.  In my young age I always thought of “sick” as a runny nose, a cough, and sore throat, among other conditions.  I also had this idea that all sicknesses could be cured.  As I got older it became clearer, sickness can cause death.  I heard of chicken pox, strep throat, and other nasty sickness.  Then I learned of diseases like cancer and Muscular Dystrophy, which I myself have but didn’t exactly know until I was older.  Now I feel that I have an exceptional knowledge of sickness and disease.  Not too long ago I heard of this new sickness.  That sickness, or more accurately bacteria, was MRSA.  For the first time ever I found a sickness that was almost impossible to cure.  I recently came back to this subject as I had questions regarding this strong bacteria strain.  What exactly is MRSA?  What are the treatment options, if there are any?  How did it come about?  I also found some information on a different MRSA strain, USA300, and I wondered about that as well as if other strains exist.

What is MRSA? This was the first question I tackled in my research.  Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, also known as MRSA, is a strain of staph bacteria that is resistant, or doesn’t respond to usual antibiotics that are normally used to treat staph.  Before I get too far, staph is a very common bacterium, so common that 1 out of 4 healthy people have staph on their skin or in their nasal passages, but it does not cause any problems.  About 2 in every 100 people carry the MRSA strain.  Staph, and therefore MRSA, can enter the body through a cut or sore and usually causes an infection ranging from minor to extremely serious.  MRSA usually occurs in hospital patients, especially if that person had surgery within the last year.  MRSA infections are usually severe since they enter the body and sometimes get into important internal organs.  The ways to treat MRSA are mainly antibiotics that work on that particular strain or to drain the infected area at a doctor’s office.  The best way to avoid getting MRSA is to wash your hands and generally stay clean. There are also some scary facts about MRSA.  For example, in 2005 MRSA caused a staggering 19,000 deaths in the United States which is more than AIDS.

Next, I searched for the answer to my second question.  How did MRSA come into existence?  The origin of MRSA is rather complex as well.  As humans fought against bacteria trying to rid the world of sickness and attempting to prevent people from getting sick, the bacteria got stronger rather than weaker.  Soon after, penicillin began to be less effective against bacteria. Doctors then moved on to using methicillin which, you guessed it, caused a new resistant strain, MRSA.  It attacked hospitalized patients and caused numerous problems.  It then moved on and started getting seen in communities.  This strain is called USA300 (covered later). MRSA even evolved some more.  It started off with largely undefined mutations that resulted in resistance to glycopeptides, such as vancomycin.  This strain was dubbed VISA (or GISA), which stands for vancomycin (or glycopeptide) intermediately resistant Staphylococcus aureus.  VISA is tough to detect but possible to detect through failures in the use of glycopeptides to treat the illness.  It then gained more resistance, a stronger one, through acquiring different genes resulting in VRSA.  VRSA and other MRSA strains are resistant to multiple drugs.

My final question, which sparked a majority of this research, was also very important.  What is USA300?  How is it different from MRSA?  My research ended up being successful.  USA300 is a community born bacteria strain of MRSA.  It became more noticed in emergency rooms.  The actually origin of USA300 is unknown, but it is known to have come from communities rather than hospitals.  Some scientists are saying that
this particular strain of MRSA came out of the use of antibiotic creams.  They believe this because only USA300 was resistant to combinations of the antibiotics bacitracin and neomycin which is found in over-the-counter creams.  These creams were somewhat effective in treating MRSA, but the exposure to these creams may have led to the rise of USA300.  Since USA300 is found in the community, some groups are more vulnerable including children and athletes.  Even though USA300 and MRSA can still be treated today, with the growing resistance to different treatments they may not be able to be treated in the future.

Even though MRSA is a relatively scary infection and illness, it should not be something to worry about too much.  MRSA, USA300, and other variations can be deadly or very damaging but it is a relatively rare condition in relation to other bacterial illnesses and infections. Most people don’t like the notion of getting sick in any way but it should be comforting to know that the odds of contracting a MRSA infection are actually pretty low.

What are some other variations of MRSA and how do they behave in comparison to MRSA itself? Are there other bacteria strains that are resistant to medicine, like antibiotics, other than MRSA?  Are household antibiotics causing a rise in resistant bacteria strains?

3 thoughts on “MRSA: The Resistant Superbug

  1. This blog was very well done, I liked that Bryant put in personal thoughts and experiences into the post. The “staggering 19,000 deaths” really was staggering to me, it really got me to open my eyes about how many deadly terrible sicknesses there are that people may not know about. But I got a little curious about staph, so I did my own research. I found out that it was a bacterium that formed irregular colonies. This makes quite a bit of sense to me because it apparently quite alike to the MRSA. And the blog said that the MRSA gets under skin and may do something and may not, and, if it wants to do something, it is pretty free to do whatever it wants.

    http://www.medicinenet.com/staph_infection/article.htm

  2. I remember learning about MRSA when I was in the eighth grade. I didn’t think much about it, but I still found it interesting to learn. Reading this blog has now made me more intrigued. I was fascinated in looking more into MRSA and how people are able to get it and what happens to those with the infection. According to this this article , MRSA occurs more commonly in people with weak immune systems – even more so are patients who are getting cancer treatments or kidney dialysis. But the infection also occurs when athletes share personal equipment such as towels or razors. So by not sharing equipment and keeping clean people would be able to better help prevent getting a staph infection.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004520/

  3. MRSA is a strain of Staphylococcus aureus. All strains of this so far are immune to antibiotics form modern science. And just liked how we talked in class if you go in to the doctor and receive antibiotics and take them for a few days you will feel better. Well if you stop taking them then the bacteria left will build up immunity and then you will have to get a stronger antibiotic and take it for the full time. That is another way that a bacterium builds up immunity as well as being naturally immune. So yes there are many other types that are immune.

    http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/curriculum/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&secondaryNav=&groupid=1&requestid=lib_standard&resultid=5&edition=&ts=590F41673A79E453BDD6463943789860_1322590584108&start=1&publicationId=&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B32652329

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