According to a published report in the Washington Post, a survey found that more than half of athletic trainers in the U.S. said they've treated an athlete for a skin infection caused by the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria.

The story explains that while MRSA infections typically aren't fatal, they can cause skin abscesses that require surgical draining, and the infections are likely to be resistant to first-line antibiotics. In some of the scarier cases, MRSA can cause serious and potentially fatal problems such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections and flesh-eating disease.

"This Web-based survey of 364 certified athletic trainers found that 53 percent said they'd treated MRSA skin infections in athletes. Of the infections treated: 86 percent were in males and 35 percent were in females; 65 percent were in football players; 21 percent in basketball players; and 20 percent were in wrestlers. The infections typically occurred in: the lower leg (38 percent); forearm (31 percent); and the knee (29 percent)."

Read the entire story from the Washington Post to learn why athletes are at increased risk for MRSA infection and what trainers should look for in their athletes.

Labels: athletes, symptoms, trainers

Earlier this year, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that "Clones of the antibiotic-resistant MRSA superbug which has infected a number of professional football and baseball athletes as well as children in day care centres in the US is set to take Canada by force."

"The Department of Infectious Diseases, and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto warn that a new MRSA mutant is quietly spreading outside of public awareness. Canadian health officials referred to this new strain of MRSA as 'an old foe with new fangs', a pathogen that combines 'virulence, resistance and an ability to disseminate at large'. Usually MRSA preys on vulnerable people like the elderly and people recovering from serious operations in hospital, but this new strain is infecting healthy people as well."

Because healthy people carry the bacteria in their nostrils and on the skin, MRSA can be contracted through skin to skin contact or sneezing in warm damp or steamy areas (public showers, changing rooms, and locker rooms).

Read more about the growing number of professional athletes who have been infected with MRSA, including three US National Football League (NFL) teams who have had to deal with multiple infections of the superbug, online.

Labels: athletes, health_officials, health_warnings

When Mark Shirtliff was studying for his doctorate in microbiology he learned that bacteria can band together into sheets - called biofilms, which alters their behavior and allows them to form complex communities, establish lines of communication and coordinate their actions. These stronger, nastier microbes find power in numbers and become 50 to 500 times more resistant to antibiotics.

"Shirtliff, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Dental School received $1.25 million this month from the National Institutes of Health for research into vaccines that might prevent the deadly films from forming in the first place. Although the public rarely hears it in popular discussions of health issues, the term 'biofilm' was coined in a 1978 Scientific American article by William Costerton, now of the University of Southern California Dental School. 'It came up in dentistry first,' Costerton said. 'They called it plaque. I just proposed (that) the biofilm isn't just in the mouth, but everywhere."

It's true - these biofilms coat everything from river rocks to neglected teeth to ship hulls, oil pipelines and machinery. In addition to causing skin infections in people, they cause billions of dollars of damage by corroding metal surfaces and clogging up the works.

Shirtliff has focused on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA, which, according to the CDD, kills about 90,000 people in the United States every year. Shirtliff is searching for a way to prevent the films from growing in an effort to prevent people from getting a MRSA infection in the first place. Read more online.

Labels: research, vaccine