Posted on 01/15/2008 2:44:16 PM PST by blam
'Flesh-eating' MRSA threatens Britain
By Caroline Gammell and Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Last Updated: 5:49pm GMT 15/01/2008
A potentially deadly and highly drug resistant strain of MRSA has developed which can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, researchers have warned.
The USA300 strain is spreading outside hospitals into the general population
Spreading rapidly among gay men in several major US cities, the bug can cause boils as large as tennis balls, blood poisoning or a necrotising condition which eats away at a person's lungs.
The type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was identified in gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.
Resistant to most front-line antibiotic drugs, the new strain is a far more vicious form of MRSA, which is commonly found in hospitals.
It is thought to be spread by sexual contact, researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
advertisementExperts, who found sexually active gay men in San Francisco were 13 times more likely to be infected than heterosexuals, fear promiscuous gay or bisexual men could spread the new bug to the general community, mirroring the infection route behind the early HIV epidemic of the 1980s.
The strain is also prevalent among injecting drug users and players of contact sports such as wrestling or American football.
"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable,” said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study.
“That’s why we’re trying to spread the message of prevention.”
In San Francisco’s Castro district, home to the highest concentration of gay people in the US, about one in 588 people are carrying the multi-drug resistant bug.
"We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere,” said Dr Diep. “This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter.”
The new strain, first detected in a San Francisco patient in 2003, is a version of a recently identified community form of MRSA known as USA300 but even harder to treat.
The USA300 strain was first identified in 1999 after it killed four young children in North Dakota and has since become a serious problem, responsible for the majority of admissions for infectious diseases in US hospitals.
Although only two cases of the lethal strain have been recorded in the UK, experts fear it may only be a matter of time before it becomes established in Britain.
Dr Diep said: "These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities.
"But because the bacteria can be spread by more casual contact, we are also very concerned about a potential spread of this strain into the general population.
"The potential widespread dissemination of the multi-resistant form of USA300 into the general population is alarming."
Dr Diep said one way to avoid infection was to wash thoroughly with soap and water, especially after sexual activities.
Professor Mark Enright, from Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital, London, Britain's leading authority on MRSA, said: "The main reservoir for this infection is gay men, drug users, and those involved in contact sports, like wrestling.
"Having lots of sexual partners and making skin contact with a large number of different people helps the infection to spread.
"In the US it is already moving into the wider community, which is very worrying."
Prof Enright said "flesh-eating" necrotising pneumonia was difficult to treat and half of all those infected in this way died.
-should we get nervous yet?
“That’s why we’re trying to spread the message of prevention.”
Prevention...........what a joke.
Ultimately we will be reprocessed one way or another.
And liberals?
Annals of Internal MedicineI bet that name has been the butt of a joke or two.
Marvelous.
“What is “No,” Alex?”
Community-acquired MRSA has been around for a few years. It affects high school and college athletes, cheerleaders, day care kids, first responders, etc. Wash your hands, wear gloves, avoid skin to skin contact. You know, the usual precautions. I’ve seen a couple of cases of pneumonia.
It communicable person to person but it’s not plague. This is hype because its gays.
..you will know there is trouble when your neighbor drops dead....
Or if you look down and notice that you have "boils as large as tennis balls."
That may not be all that unusual in the queer community.
filthy disease ridden queers destroying society...
I just want to know: Is this MSRA potentially more or less dangerous to my health than second hand smoke?
ML/NJ
they left a word out.
Another world plague, compliments of the gays - and there are some who will deliberately spread it to the non-gay community so they can say "See, it isn't just us" -
If gay men were interested in prevention, AIDS would not be a problem. What makes anyone think they will now suddenly become interested in prevention.
They KNOW how to prevent, the are not interested. Nor is our government.
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