Yet Another Way to Contract MRSA...The Beach?
According to a new article published in USA Today by Steve Sternberg, your local beach can be added to the ever-growing list of places where MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staph aureus, can be found. As many of you know, MRSA is a potentially life-threatening bacteria that is highly resistant to many types of antibiotics.
This new information comes from a recent study completed by researchers at the University of Washington who found MRSA in in marine water and beach sand from seven public beaches located around the Puget Sound.
The researchers identified Staph bacteria on nine of 10 public beaches that they tested. Seven of 13 Staph aureus samples, found on five beaches, were multidrug resistant, says lead investigator Marilyn Roberts.
"Our results suggest that public beaches may be a reservoir for possible transmission of MRSA," she told the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy here, the leading international conference on new and resurgent diseases.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been around for almost as long as there have been antibiotics. Until recently, researchers have been able to outwit them by developing new antibiotics. Now, however, the pipeline of new antibiotics has slowed, and germs are coming perilously close to winning the race.
The best available treatment for MRSA, vancomycin, is more expensive than other antibiotics and takes a long time to conquer the infection. "It's like trying to turn an ocean liner around," says Henry Chambers of the University of California, San Francisco.
Until a decade ago, most multidrug-resistant Staph aureus infections were found in hospitals among severely ill patients. That changed about seven years ago with the emergence of a strain hardy enough, and virulent enough to infect healthy people, usually in their skin and soft tissues.
Since about 30% of healthy people carry Staph aureus, most people are able to survive infection. But it is fatal in about 20% of people who develop MRSA bloodstream infections and 40% of those who develop MRSA pneumonia. It has emerged as a killer of people with severe influenza, including the new H1N1, or swine, flu.
Curiously, Roberts says, five of the samples found on the beach and in the sand more closely resembled hospital-acquired MRSA than the bacteria found in the community. Three of the samples, from three beaches 10 miles apart, were virtually identical, she says. "One would think they came from the same source," Roberts added.
The most likely scenario, she says, is that the source is environmental, not human, but "where all of these organisms are coming from and how they're getting seeded (on the beaches) is not clear." Tests of ocean water and sand taken from two beaches in Southern California turned up no Staph aureus at all.
Genetic analysis also suggested that the Puget Sound beaches, and maybe others, may represent an "ecosystem," where bacteria thrive, mingle and swap genes, particularly those confer antibiotic resistance.
Roberts says there may be much more MRSA than her team's "grab and go" sampling experiments indicated. "The fact that we found these organisms suggests that the amount is much higher than we previously thought," she says.
Lance Peterson, a University of Chicago infectious disease specialist who was not involved in the study, says, "Staph is a salt-loving organism. It's not surprising to see it in the ocean."
I had my first MRSA infection in August of 2006. I had just given birth to my 3rd child in April of that year. That was my 3rd c-section and I had been hospitalized for an infection in my breast a couple of years before then. I began getting infections every other month. Finally I ended in the hospital in June of 2008. I have had only one infection since then. It happened a couple of months ago. Here is what has kept me MRSA free. I drink a 16 oz bottle of green tea for lunch every day. I also take a woman's vitamin every day during lunch. The reason I got an infection was because I had stopped drinking the green tea and began drinking other related drinks. Then I forgot to take the vitamin for 2 days in a row. Then BAM! I got one on my right thigh. I went back to my regimen and I'm MRSA free again.
I read a study from 2009 that in the Netherlands they discovered a new and unique strain of MRSA that was traced back to a hog production facility. Nothing was confirmed, but the evidence appeared to be pointing to the production facility.