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3 High Schoolers Contract MRSA

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By TIFFANY LANKES, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: October 19, 2007

SARASOTA - A potentially deadly bacterial strain has touched three Sarasota County high schools, sending three students to the hospital for treatment.

School officials announced Thursday that the students - at Riverview, Sarasota and Venice high schools - had contracted antibiotic-resistant infections similar to the one that killed a student in Virginia this week.

All of the Sarasota County students got treatment quickly, and none of the infections, caused by the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, became life threatening.

School district and health department officials said they cannot say for sure where the students contracted the infections. Two of the students play on sports teams, which can increase the risk of infection because of close contact.

The district is advising parents not to panic, but to be aware of signs that could indicate an MRSA infection.

Two of the students have returned to classes. District officials were not sure about the third's status.

The MRSA bacterium is spreading so quickly across the nation that health officials say it may kill more people than AIDS, according to an article published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The first sign of trouble in Sarasota emerged about a month ago, when the first local student contracted the infection. School officials notified parents of students who participate in athletics and asked them to take proper precautions.

Then, last week, staff at Riverview sent 13 students with rashes to physicians for testing. One of the students turned out to have MRSA.

As each of the schools found out about the infections, maintenance workers thoroughly disinfected locker rooms, asking students to remove their belongings from lockers so staff could clean inside.

MRSA, pronounced mersa, causes skin infections that can appear in the form of abscesses and boils. The bacterium can be treated, but not with most common antibiotics.

MRSA is passed through close contact with an infected person, and often results from poor hygiene. The infection is most common in hospitals but can also occur in other spaces where people have close contact, including locker rooms.

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