Not a nurse (yet), but have micro under my belt. I will first assume we are talking about Staph. aureus, the most pathogenic of the Staph species. The problem is, we all have Staph aureus on our bodies; we are carriers. Staph is easily transmitted, via fomites, droplets, and skin: that is, nurses, doctors, and visitors; and goes through breaks in the skin or mucous membranes. If your skin was intact going in to visit your friend, you were basically protected. Usually, it causes an infection in older patients when catheters (most common cause of nosocomial infections) or some foreign body is present. It takes 5 million organisms injected into the skin to cause an infection, but only 100 if it is in a suture and tied to the skin. Antibiotics are the treatment, and I will assume your friend was on. That being said, the ole handwashing technique kills Staph aureus on the skin, and that is really only what you needed to do when you left the ICU. HOWEVER, if the wounds were draining, then strict isolation would be required: door closed, private room, gown, gloves, mask, wash hands entering/leaving room. Did I just flip flop? I hope I didn't cause more confusion.

I assume we are talking about MRSA. I have sepnt many hrs working with patients who have MRSA, includingmy mother. At the hospital, as nurses, we are required to gown/glove no matter what. Wether the patient has it on the skin or in a wound, lungs... It's universal precautiosn, not just for US but for all our other patients who cannot be exposed to it.

At the hospital where my mom was, she had the infection in a wound that was draining/open. So gloves, down, mask. Now, even if it were on her skin and she was found to carry MRSA we would have had to glove and gown too. That's just the hospital's policy.

I know that there are hospitals in BC (Canada) that only require the visitors to wash their hands and that these patients are not kept in ioslation, like here.

People are sent home with MRSA all the time here. It won't hurt you unless you are immuno compromised or you too have an open wound. People walk around with it in the community and don't even know it.

Simple Staph aureus is different from MRSA, MRSA means that it is resistant to Methiciline and therefore harder to get rid of, though now they use Vancomycin IV and that usually works.

I was a carrier after being a patient for a month and had no idea. It was in my nose (the most common place to carry it) and when it was found out through routine checking, they gave me antibiotic cream to use for a week in my nose and it's gone! Simple.

Here in Quebec we had/have a huge problem with C. Diff and MRSA and VRE in the hospitals. They have worked really hard to get rid of this problem and it is working, albeit slowly.

In Pittsburgh it's been a problem, but not as bad as has been reported in Britain. I read an article about some more extensive problems in Eastern PA though. Does anyone know if there are any US plans afoot to deal with this?

Is this sort of quarantine occurring throughout Canada? Does anyone know of similar quarantines going on in the US?

This seems like a case of healthcare workers not washing their hands properly. When will people learn????

There was an article in the Guardian today about a new ant-MRSA nasal cream that scientists in Britain are developing. The drug is expected to be released in two years. Are there any creams available currently?

They use a cream to treat it in the nose right now, doesn't prevent it though. It's called Bactroban, and is put inside the nasal cavity for a week.

Marieke - I read an article about the nasal cream yesterday - is it available in the US and Canada? It said that it would take two years for the nasal cream to be developed.

I don't think all the precautions in the world are going to eliminate these smart bugs. There will always be someone or something that will eventually cause it to be transmitted. I think the problem stems more from the method of killing bacteria. I saw a documentary that discussed how for years Russia treats bacterial infections w/ viruses called Bacteriophages. These are naturally occuring viruses that attack and kill only specific bacteria. The bacteriophages are otherwise harmless to humans and bacteria can't become resistant to them. This treatment is extremely inexpensive and the poor can easily afford it. To my knowledge, they haven't had problems w/ allergic reactions or viruses mutating. Why haven't scientists and pharmaceutical companies jumped on this? I bet it has something to do with being a nonviable money maker for large wealthy pharamaceutical companies and their investors.

My husband had a fasciotomy to leg in California. He was placed in a room with another gentleman that was positive for MRSA. I expressed my concern about this, they informed me each pt had different nurses and CNAs. This was to prevent the spread. It seems like the majority of postops were MRSA positive in their wounds in CA...I have never seen that much MRSA. The nurse that was caring for my husband said it's nothing to worry about because almost everyone has MRSA. With that attitude I can see why I took care of many MRSA wounds were I worked...we'd get to do the wound care so they could go home. When I worked in Montana it was so infrequent we would have to pull the policy just to be safe and know what was expected of us.

Staph infections seem to be affecting patients now more than ever according to this feature article.

No, I do not mean touching the boil or obvious staph infection; I mean touching-say, their arm or hand, etc.

Here in Va. there have been recent outbreaks of MRSA in schools. 2 schools have had to close bcause of this and a third, close to me, has a student they suspect of having this who was a wrestler. They had to wipe everything in the gym, mats etc., down and the student cannot return to school until he is cleared of that diagnosis. This is shocking!

We have been treating MRSA in Kentucky now for the past several years. At our home health agency we have seen more and more patients coming out the hospital with MRSA. We have been treating children with Community Acquired MRSA as well. This is definately an epidemic that the goverment needs to be paying attention too. Staph is mutating quicker than we can find treatments. I totally agree with the other postings on handwashing and not using antibiotics unless there is no other option.