Children in the US are developing more serious head and neck staph infections that are harder to treat with common antibiotics.

In 2006, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections, also known as MRSA, accounted for 28.1 percent of children’s staph infections resistant to standard drug treatment. In 2001, the percentage was just 11.8, according to the study conducted by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta.

 

“There is a nationwide increase in the prevalence of MRSA in children with head and neck infections that is alarming,” said Dr. Steven Sobol of Emory University, lead-author of the study that appears in the Archives of Otalaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

MRSA infection is caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, a strain of staph that is resistant to the broad-spectrum antibiotics called the beta-lactams, which include the penicillins and the cephalosporins.

Most MRSA infections occur in hospitals. People can carry it on their skin or in their noses with no symptoms and in this way they can infect others without knowing. MRSA is more prevalent and potentially more serious when acquired in a hospital than when contracted outside.

 

For the study, the researchers reviewed pediatric head and neck infection records from more than 300 hospitals in the U.S. between 2001 and 2006. They found that most MRSA head and neck infections occurred in the ears, with 34%, followed by those in the nose and sinuses. The number of staph infections showing signs of antibiotic resistance more than doubled from 12 percent in 2001 to 28 percent in 2006. Almost 60 percent of all MRSA infections of the head and neck were acquired outside hospitals, according to the study.

 

According to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 94,000 Americans get serious MRSA infections each year and 19,000 die.

 

Studies show that germs causing outbreaks in ordinary community settings are becoming more and more resistant and are posing a growing threat, causing far more illnesses than in the past.

 

The authors of the study suggest that a possible solution may be the acceleration of the detection process with more rapid testing and prescription of the appropriate antibiotic treatment for suspected head and neck infections.

 

MRSA is very dangerous because it is spread by having direct contact with another person's infection, sharing personal items such as towels or razors that have touched infected skin, or by touching surfaces contaminated with MRSA. The community-acquired MRSA usually is caused in the United States by a strain designated ST8:USA300. This type of infection is more virulent but easier to treat than the hospital acquired MRSA, which is responsible for nosocomial infections. People become infected when the bacteria penetrate the body through a cut, a graze or any break in the skin.