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Researchers have reported that cases of drug-resistant bacterial infection, MRSA, have increased by 90% in the US since 1999.
They found two new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were circulating in patients and they are dissimilar to the strains usually seen in hospitals.
Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University in New Jersey and team examined data on lab tests from a national network of 300 microbiology laboratories in the United States.
"We found during 1999-2006 that the percentage of S. aureus infections resistant to methicillin increased more than 90 percent, or 10 percent a year, in outpatients admitted to US hospitals," they wrote in a report published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
"This increase was caused almost entirely by community-acquired MRSA strains, which increased more than 33 percent annually."
MRSA is now ingrained in US hospitals. It was also known to be circulating in the the public but it was confirmed whether patients were carrying the infections out of hospitals, or the other way around.
Laxminarayan's team established that many more people were being detected with the community-acquired strains, and these strains were not replacing the identified hospital strains. Instead, they are just adding up to the total number of MRSA cases.
"Our findings have implications for local and national policies aimed at containing and preventing MRSA," they wrote.
New, rapid tests are required so that patients can be diagnosed and treated quickly. MRSA can be treated, but doctors need to identify immediately so that they can put patients onto the correct antibiotics.
"Lastly, infection control policies should take into account the role that outpatients likely play in the spread of MRSA and promote interventions that could prevent spread of MRSA from outpatient areas to inpatient areas," they added.
MRSA is one of the most common causes of hospital-acquired infections. It can also be acquired in schools, at fitness centres, etc. The symptoms vary from sores to bloodborne infections that can kill fast.
The researchers approximate that 20,000 people in the US die every year from MRSA, and the cost of treating MRSA can range from $3,000 to $35,000 or more per case.
