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In the early 2000s, hospitals across Australia began installing more hand-sanitizer dispensers in their rooms and hallways for staff, visitors and patients to use. Research showed these alcohol-based disinfectants helped battle staph infections in patients and certain kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. And rates of these infections went down. But other infections didn't drop when people started using the sanitizer stations. In fact, certain infections went up. In particular, enterococcal infections — caused by bacteria that affect the digestive tract, bladder, heart and other parts of the body — started increasing. This wasn't only happening in Australia. Countries around the world...

The cardiac surgeon had unknowingly spread a staph infection from the rash on his hand to the hearts of at least five patients by the time Los Angeles County health investigators learned of the outbreak. The doctor had operated on more than 60 others in recent months, and county officials feared those patients could be struck with the same dangerous infection. Investigators didn't ultimately tie any deaths to the 2012 outbreak, but four patients needed additional surgery because of the infection. The only public mention of the case came a year later in a little-noticed appendix to the health department's...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Actor Roy Scheider, the star of such films as "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," died Sunday at 75 in Little Rock, Ark., his wife told The New York Times. Scheider, who lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died of complications from a staph infection, Brenda Scheider told the newspaper. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma. Scheider came to prominence in such '70s films as "Klute" and "The French Connection" -- for which he earned an Oscar nomination as Buddy Russo, the partner of police Detective Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman. Scheider may have...

Thirty percent of the population at any one time carries colonies of staphylococcus aureus on their skin and in their nose. One percent carries colonies of the antibiotic-resistant version of the bacteria that recently infected students in Anne Arundel County, Md., and Rappahannock County, Va., public schools. Carrying the bacteria known as staph is common, but it usually doesn't lead to an infection, area doctors say. "Colonization is to have staph on our skin without any symptoms," says Dr. Jose Bordon, associate director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, Section of Infectious Diseases, at Providence Hospital in Northeast. "However, colonized...

The alarmingly high number of life-threatening infections occurring in U.S. hospitals has prompted medical staffs and state lawmakers to focus on better awareness and take steps to reduce the spread. "For too long" hospitals and dialysis centers "have kept patient infections a dirty secret," said Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumer Union's Stop Hospital Infections campaign. "But now, more states are moving to make infection rates public, so consumers can make smarter health care choices, and hospitals have a stronger incentive to improve patient care."

POSTED: 12:01 am PST February 21, 2006 UPDATED: 9:25 am PST February 21, 2006 SEATTLE -- A 6-year-old Bellingham boy is fighting to survive a deadly infection that's killing the tissue in his face. Jake Finkbonner has necrotizing faciitis, a ravaging bacteria. Finkbonner was airlifted from Bellingham to Children's Hospital a week ago. He's had three surgeries so far to try to save his life. The problem started when the boy received a fat lip from a fall at a basketball game. Jake's father, Donny Finkbonner, said surgeons worked on his son the night he was brought to Children's Hospital...

I am making a request to my FReeper friends for prayers for my husband's cousin and his newborn baby. Baby Ella Mae was born yesterday at a healthy 8 lbs. 3 oz. However she developed an infection which they believe may be a staph infection and has been struggling since birth. She is currently on intravenous antibiotics. Please say a prayer for precious Ella Mae that she will be well and go home with her mother and father soon. Ella Mae is their firts child. Also, can any medical field FReepers fill me in on how serious this can be?...

Essential Oils Can Be Used As a Natural Antibacterial   It is estimated that infections such as MRSA (staph infection) kill 5,000 people each year. This is partly due to the fact that current treatments are only successful in around 50 percent of cases; such treatments can also cause skin irritation. However, researchers may have discovered a much more efficient, not to mention pleasant, way to treat staph infections: Essential oils (compounds found within aromatic plants). It seems that the use of these oils, typically used in aromatherapy, have been found to kill deadly MRSA bacteria within just two...