Contagious, Symptoms, Causes, Prevention, Treatments

What Is MRSA?

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium that causes infections in different parts of the body. It’s tougher to treat than most strains of staphylococcus aureus — or staph — because it’s resistant to some commonly used antibiotics.

The symptoms of MRSA depend on where you’re infected. Most often, it causes mild infections on the skin, like sores, boils, or abscesses. But it can also cause more serious skin infections or infect surgical wounds, the bloodstream, the lungs, or the urinary tract.

Though most MRSA infections aren’t serious, some can be life-threatening. Many public health experts are alarmed by the spread of tough strains of MRSA. Because it’s hard to treat, MRSA is sometimes called a “super bug.”

What Causes MRSA?

Garden-variety staph are common bacteria that can live in our bodies. Plenty of healthy people carry staph without being infected by it. In fact, one third of everybody has staph bacteria in their noses.

But staph can be a problem if it manages to get into the body, often through a cut. Once there, it can cause an infection. Staph is one of the most common causes of skin infections in the U.S. Usually, these are minor and don’t need special treatment. Less often, staph can cause serious problems like infected wounds or pneumonia.

Staph can usually be treated with antibiotics. But over the decades, some strains of staph — like MRSA — have become resistant to antibiotics that once destroyed it. MRSA was first discovered in 1961. It’s now resistant to methicillin, amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin, and other common antibiotics known as cephalosporins.

While some antibiotics still work, MRSA is constantly adapting. Researchers developing new antibiotics are having a tough time keeping up.

Who Gets MRSA?

MRSA is spread by contact. So, you could get MRSA by touching another person who has it on the skin. Or you could get it by touching objects that have the bacteria on them. MRSA is carried by about 2% of the population (or 2 in 100 people), although most of them aren’t infected.

There are two different populations of people who get MRSA — one is in decline — those who get it in hospitals or other health care environments — and the other is on the rise — those who get it in the community. 

MRSA infections are common among people who have weak immune systems who are in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care centers. Infections can appear around surgical wounds or invasive devices, like catheters or implanted feeding tubes. 

According to the CDC, a concertred effort by the 2013 National Action Plan to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections helped reduce bloodstream infections caused by MRSA by 50% by 2020.

Community-Associated MRSA (CA-MRSA)

Alarmingly, MRSA is also showing up in healthy people who have not been hospitalized. This type of MRSA is called community-associated MRSA, or CA-MRSA. 

CA-MRSA skin infections have been identified among certain populations that share close quarters or have more skin-to-skin contact. Examples are team athletes, military recruits, prison inmates, and children in daycare. But more and more CA-MRSA infections are being seen in the general community, especially in certain geographic regions.

CA-MRSA is also more likely to affect younger people. In a study of Minnesotans published in TheJournal of the American Medical Association, the average age of people with MRSA in a hospital or health care facility was 68. But the average age of a person with CA-MRSA was only 23.

Understanding MRSA Symptoms

What Are the Symptoms of MRSA?

The symptoms of MRSA infection depend on where you’ve been infected.

MRSA most often appears as a skin infection, like a boil or abscess. It also might infect a surgical wound. In either case, the area would look:

• Swollen
• Red
• Painful
• Filled with pus

Many people who have a staph skin infection often mistake it for a spider bite.

If staph infects the lungs and causes pneumonia, you will have:

• Shortness of breath
• Fever
• Cough
• Chills

MRSA can cause many other symptoms, because once it gets into your bloodstream, MRSA can settle anywhere. It can cause abscess in your spleen, kidney, and spine. It can cause endocarditis (heart valve infections), osteomyelitis (bone infections),  joint infections, breast mastitis, and prosthetic device infections. Unlike most MRSA skin infections, which can be treated in the doctor’s office, these other more serious infections will land you in the hospital for intravenous antibiotic therapy.

Very rarely, staph can result in necrotizing fasciitis, or “flesh-eating” bacterial infections. These are serious skin infections that spread very quickly. While frightening, only a handful of necrotizing fasciitis cases has been reported.

Call Your Doctor About MRSA If:

You have signs of active infection, most likely of the skin with a spreading, painful, red rash or abscess; in most cases, MRSA is easily treated. However, MRSA infection can be serious, so seek medical care.

If you are already being treated for an infection, watch for signs that your medicine isn’t working. If you are taking an antibiotic, call your health care provider if:

• The infection is no better after three or four days of antibiotic therapy.
• The rash spreads.
• You develop a fever, or your fever gets worse.

People who are ill or have a compromised immune system have a higher risk of getting serious MRSA infections. If you have a condition that lowers your immunity, call your doctor right away if you think that you might have an infection.

What does MRSA stand for?

Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (CA-MRSA)

Last Reviewed: October 2007

What is Staphylococcus aureus?

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a bacteria normally found on the skin or in the nose of 20 to 30 percent of healthy individuals. When S. aureus is present without causing symptoms, it is called colonization. If symptoms are present, it is called an infection.

What is MRSA?

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a strain of S. aureus that is resistant to methicillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, and is traditionally seen in people who have been recently hospitalized or who have been treated at a health care facility (such as treatment at a dialysis center).

What is CA-MRSA?

Community-associated MRSA infections (CA-MRSA) are MRSA infections in healthy people who have not been hospitalized or had a medical procedure (such as dialysis or surgery) within the past year.

Who gets CA-MRSA?

Anyone can get CA-MRSA, however outbreaks have been seen among athletes, prisoners, military recruits, daycare attendees, injection drug users and other groups of people who live in crowded settings and/or routinely share contaminated items. Poor hygiene practices, such as lack of hand washing, may spread the bacteria easily.

What are the symptoms associated with CA-MRSA infection?

CA-MRSA infections typically begin as skin infections. They first appear as reddened areas on the skin, or can resemble pimples that develop into skin abscesses or boils causing fever, pus, swelling, or pain.

How are CA-MRSA infections treated?

CA-MRSA skin infections can be treated by draining any abscesses or boils and providing localized care. Antibiotics can be given if necessary. When left untreated, CA-MRSA infections can progress to serious complications. Visit your health care provider if you think you might have a MRSA infection.

How do I know if I got MRSA from the community or from a health care setting?

Most MRSA infections are found in people who are or have recently been hospitalized. CA-MRSA is usually diagnosed when the patient has an MRSA infection and has not had surgery, dialysis, nor been admitted to a hospital or other health care facilities in the past year. CA-MRSA can also be diagnosed when a person has a MRSA infection that began too soon after admission to be acquired in the hospital.

How is it transmitted?

CA-MRSA is spread in the same way as an MRSA infection, mainly through person-to-person contact or contact with a contaminated item such as a towel, clothing or athletic equipment. Bacteria that exist normally on the skin cause CA-MRSA and so it is possible to infect a pre-existing cut not protected by a dressing or other bandage.

How can the spread of CA-MRSA be controlled?

Careful hand washing is the single most effective way to control the spread of CA-MRSA. Skin infections caused by MRSA should be covered until healed, especially to avoid spreading the infection to others. Family members and others with close contact should wash their hands frequently with soap and water. Personal items that may be contaminated (towels, razors, clothing, etc.) should not be shared.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) have issued recommendations for preventing the spread of MRSA among athletes. These include practicing good personal hygiene, including showering after practices and competitions and not sharing personal items such as towels. Athletes who participate in sports where equipment is often collectively used are encouraged to reduce sharing as much as possible and to regularly wipe-down equipment/mats with commercial disinfectants or a 1:100 solution of diluted bleach (one tablespoon bleach in one quart water).

Where can I get further information on CA-MRSA?

What does the acronym MRSA stand for? – Rehabilitationrobotics.net

What does the acronym MRSA stand for?

What is MRSA? MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that is resistant to several antibiotics.

What does MRSA stand for Why is MRSA considered a threat to public health?

Recently, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a focus of public health concern due to its increased virulence and resistance to an increasingly broad spectrum of antibiotics. MSRA can be a nosocomial infection, acquired through extended hospital stays or the use of invasive devices.

What is MRSA classified as?

Here’s our process. What is MRSA? Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an infection caused by Staphylococcus (staph) bacteria. This type of bacteria is resistant to many different antibiotics. These bacteria naturally live in the nose and on the skin and generally don’t cause any harm.

What does MRSA stand for quizlet?

Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

What is the best way to control the spread of MRSA?

To help prevent the spread of MRSA infections:

1. Wash your hands. Use soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitizer.
2. Take showers. Shower immediately after exercise.
3. Use barriers. Cover cuts and scrapes with a bandage to keep germs out.
4. Wash your clothing and equipment.

Can MRSA live on bar soap?

No. Bar soap does not appear to transmit disease. The most rigorous study of this question was published in 1965. Scientists conducted a series of experiments in which they intentionally contaminated their hands with about five billion bacteria.

Can bacteria live on bar soap?

It’s true: Germs do live on bars of soap. Several studies over the past decades have shown that bar soaps used at home and in public places harbor bacteria, such as E. coli, Staph.

Are bars of soap sanitary?

The answer: Germs can and most likely do live on all bars of soap, but it’s very unlikely they will make you sick or cause a skin infection. Bacteria lives quite happily in the “slime” of bar soap, but doing a few simple things (which you probably do already) will make it so the germs are of no consequence to you.

How do you tell if you have MRSA?

MRSA and other staph skin infections often appear as a bump or infected area on the skin that may be: > Red > Swollen or painful > Warm to the touch > Full of pus or other drainage It is especially important to contact your healthcare professional when MRSA skin infection signs and symptoms are accompanied by a fever.

The Drug-Resistant ‘Superbug’ That Won’t Die : NPR

Chapter 1

The First Alert

Tony Love’s knee ached.

Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA
By Maryn McKenna
Hardcover, 288 pages
Free Press
List price: $26.00

The rangy, round-headed thirteen-year-old had banged into a friend a week ago while they were playing volleyball in the school gym. They crashed to the floor together, arms and untied shoelaces flying, and Tony scraped his elbow. After school, he and his mother and his grandmother had bandaged the cut and shrugged it off. He was a teenager, after all; Clarissa Love, his mother, expected her son to be rambunctious. It was mid-September 2007. The weather was still hot south of Chicago and Tony was still in summer mode, twitching behind his desk at school until the bell rang and he could burst out and work it off. The scratch was no big deal, and Tony was tough; he was the second child of six, and the only boy until his baby brother, the youngest, had come along. Tony saw himself as the man of the family, keeping his sisters in line while Clarissa, who was thirty, worked as an aide for the disabled.

The elbow had healed up after a few days, but then his left knee started to hurt. Now it was hot and so swollen he couldn’t bend his leg. When he tried to put his weight on it, it throbbed like his heart had gone down behind his kneecap. Clarissa had gone away for a few days, so her mother Sandra put the oldest sister in charge of the other children, hooked Tony’s arm around her shoulder, and steered him out to the car. He leaned on her heavily, hopping on his good leg and wincing when the other foot hit the ground.

At the little local hospital, the emergency room doctor listened to Tony’s story and shrugged. It was probably a sprain, he said; take the boy home, give him Motrin, wrap the knee in hot towels, and it would be bet­ter in a few days. They staggered home.

It did not get better. Four days later, Tony’s left knee still hurt, and his left foot and both of his hands did too. His hip joints ached so much he didn’t want to walk, not even to the bathroom. He didn’t want to eat, either. A thirteen-year-old boy with no appetite; to his grandmother, that was the biggest warning sign of all. She checked his temperature and found it was 104. Frightened, she hauled him out to the car and took him to the next-biggest local hospital, a few miles further south. The ER staff there checked his vital signs and listened to his story: the scrape, the fever, the lethargy, the joint pain for more than a week, the not wanting to eat or pee.

They were a little worried, they told his grandmother. Tony’s pulse and blood pressure looked normal and his breathing was fine, but the fever indicated an infection, and his kidneys weren’t working as well as they should. The hospital was willing to admit him, but to be safe, the ER staff thought they ought to take him to a children’s hospital. There was a very good one, they said, back toward the city, at the University of Chicago, and they called an ambulance.

It was the end of the workday, and Clarissa met Tony and her mother at Comer Children’s Hospital, a gleaming new glass pile just off the univer­sity’s park-like main boulevard. The ambulance crew that brought them rolled Tony straight up to the medical floor, and the nursing staff began admitting him, checking his vital signs again and going over his paperwork from the smaller hospital. The ER staff there had suspected that Tony had osteomyelitis, a bone infection that could be caused by several kinds of bacteria. It was a serious condition, but not rare, and it was treatable, requiring that he get the right drugs for whichever bacteria were infecting him and be monitored by someone who understood the disease in children.

But while they were talking, Tony’s condition abruptly got worse. He became agitated and confused; then he began breathing fast and deep. His skin had been radiating heat from the fever, but it turned cold as quickly as if someone had parked him in front of an air conditioner. The medical staff around him recognized the signs: the bacterial infection was spilling over into his bloodstream, and his immune system’s spiraling reaction was slowing his pulse and crashing his blood pressure. In half an hour, he had gone from a sick kid to a kid in crisis.

A nurse phoned urgently upstairs to the pediatric intensive care unit, checking for an open bed that had all the monitoring equipment they would need. The technicians kicked the gurney’s brake locks and got him rolling, skidding past the curvy computer stations and the kid-friendly bright red columns. Tony was sliding into septic shock, and that was an emergency. Inside his body, chemicals released by his immune system were triggering a cascade like dominos falling. They were stretching the firm walls of his blood vessels, making them porous, and fluid was leak­ing out into his tissues. Blood cells were clumping and clogging his capillaries, and his oxygen-starved organs were beginning to fail. Clarissa felt her stomach cramp in fear. In front of her eyes, her son was dying.

In the ICU, the staff sedated Tony and slid a tube down his throat, turning the hard work of breathing over to a ventilator. They threaded IVs into his veins and hooked him to bags of fluids, plugging in four drugs to bring back his blood pressure and stimulate and stabilize his heart rate, and four more drugs to contain whatever bacteria were rev­ving his immune system into overdrive.

To his bewildered mother and grandmother, the swirl of controlled chaos around Tony was as inexplicable as his sudden collapse; the ICU staff seemed to be trying everything, hoping it would bring him back from the brink. No diagnosis was possible yet. They had been in the hospital barely an hour, not long enough for test results to make it down to the lab and back. But the medical staff had a strong suspicion of what could bring a healthy boy down so quickly, and the clue lay in one of the drugs they ordered pushed into his veins. It was called vancomycin, and it was famous in hospitals as a drug of last resort. They used it against a bacterium that had learned to protect itself against most of the other drugs thrown at it, a particularly dangerous variety of staph called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — MRSA, for short.

Staph, the short form of the family name Staphylococcus, is an ancient organism with a vast arsenal of tricks and defenses, some of them newly learned, others as old as man. It is unpredictable, dynamic, potentially deadly — and for more than a decade, it had been the obsession of a small group of University of Chicago researchers. Geographic accident had brought Tony to a place that understood how to help him, but it was far too soon to know whether he had arrived in time.

Excerpted from Superbug: the fatal menace of MRSA by Maryn McKenna. Copyright 2010 Maryn McKenna. Excerpted with permission by Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

MSSA vs. MRSA: What Is the Difference?

One of the first known “superbugs,” MRSA has been making headlines since the 1960s. Today, as the list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows, MRSA is still a major concern for healthcare providers and communities alike. 

MRSA’s infamous reputation shouldn’t give the impression that MSSA is a kinder, gentler strain of staph infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns, “MRSA is well known but any staph can be deadly.” 

When it comes to MSSA vs MRSA, the two are more alike than different. They have the same symptoms, cause similar problems, and cost roughly the same amount to treat. There are however, some key differences, including how (and where) the two bacteria tend to spread and how difficult they are to treat.

MSSA vs MRSA: How Are They Different?

MSSA and MRSA are two types of Staphylococcus aureus (or staph), a bacteria that many people carry on their skin and in their noses. Most people don’t even know it’s there, because the bacteria doesn’t make them sick unless a wound, surgery, or IV needle stick gives it an entrance into the body. Then it can cause infections ranging from minor skin conditions to life-threatening sepsis. Infected and “colonized” people can also transmit staph to others. When someone is colonized, S aureus bacteria is living on the individual’s skin.

The defining difference between MRSA and MSSA lies in how they respond to methicillin — an antibiotic that was introduced in 1959 to treat staph infections. Some S. aureus strains had already developed a resistance to penicillin, and by 1961, British scientists discovered strains that resisted methicillin as well. These are called methicillin-resistant staph (MRSA), as opposed to methicillin-susceptible staph (MSSA).

In terms of global health, MRSA is a more serious problem than MSSA because of its ability to evolve. There are even a few strains that can resist vancomycin, one of the last remaining antibiotics for MRSA. That’s why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists MRSA as one of the top “Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States.”

For individuals, however, both MRSA and MSSA can cause life-threatening staph infections.

Prevalence of MSSA vs MRSA Infection

One in three people (33%) carry staph in their noses, and two percent are colonized with MRSA, according to the CDC. These people are colonized, but most of them rarely become infected. If the staph bacteria gets below the skin’s surface, it can cause painful skin infections, but the real danger is when staph enters the bloodstream. More than 119,000 people were diagnosed with bloodstream staph infections in 2017, and nearly 20,000 of them died as a result. 

Some MRSA strains are more dangerous than others, but according to the World Health Organization (WHO), MRSA is generally not more virulent than MSSA. However, because MRSA is more likely than MSSA to be associated with bacteremia (bacteria in the bloodstream), MRSA has the higher mortality rate. The CDC estimates that 80,461 people experience MRSA infections each year, and 11,285 of them die.

MRSA is the most common cause of hospital-acquired bacteremia, but MSSA can also be deadly in healthcare settings, especially for infants. In a study of 348 neonatal intensive care units across the country, researchers from Duke University found that 72.1 percent of staph infections in hospitalized infants were caused by MSSA. Infants with serious MSSA infections were also more likely to die before discharge than infants with MRSA infections.

The good news is that better screening and prevention protocols have helped U.S. hospitals dramatically decrease staph infection rates since earlier this century. Between 2005 and 2012, MRSA bloodstream infections associated with healthcare facilities decreased by 17 percent per year, according to the CDC. 

The bad news is that hospitals’ MRSA progress has stagnated, with little improvement since 2013. Meanwhile, MSSA is on the rise in communities, likely due in part to the opioid crisis. In 2016, nine percent of people with serious staph infections injected drugs — up from four percent in 2011. 

Risk Factors for MSSA Infections vs MRSA

Overall, MRSA tends to be associated with hospital-acquired infections, while MSSA tends to be associated with community-acquired infections, but both types of staph are common inside and outside of hospitals. 

Hospital patients are more likely than the average person to be colonized with MRSA. While two percent of the general population is colonized with MRSA, approximately five percent of U.S. hospitals patients carry MRSA in their nose or on their skin, according to CDC estimates. 

Not only are hospital patients more likely to be exposed to staph, they are often more vulnerable to infection because they have a deep wound, surgical site, or medical device (e.g., IV, pacemaker, or ventilator) inserted in the body. Hospital patients are also more likely to have a chronic disease that puts them at greater risk for infection — such as diabetes, cancer, HIV, heart or vascular disease, or lung disease.

In hospitals, staph can be transmitted by colonized people in close quarters and contaminated surfaces, including healthcare workers’ hands. However, autoinfection is often the greatest threat. DNA tests of MRSA-infected wounds reveal that 80 percent contain bacteria from the person’s own nasal passages.

Outside of hospitals (i.e., in the community), risk factors for staph infection include uncovered or draining wounds, contact sports, crowded living situations (including nursing homes or prisons), sharing personal items such as razors or towels, and injected drug use.

MRSA vs MSSA Infection: How to Tell the Difference

Wherever or however it’s transmitted, staph bacteria (MSSA or MRSA) can cause a wide range of infections, including:

• • Skin infections: boils, cellulitis, necrotizing fasciitis 
  • Pneumonia
  • Bacteremia/endocarditis
  • Meningitis
  • Osteomyelitis 
  • Septic arthritis
  • Pyomyositis
  • Medical device infections
  • Surgical site infections

Staph infection symptoms vary depending on the part of the body that is affected. Blood tests are required to diagnose staph infection and determine whether it’s MSSA vs MRSA, or another type of bacteria altogether.

Staph infection on the skin usually appears as a painful bump or red, swollen area that’s warm to the touch, pus-filled, and often accompanied by fever.

Cost of Treatment: MSSA vs MRSA

For hospital patients with staph infection, the costs can be steep, depending on the severity and location of the infection. On average, the length of stay and price of treatment associated with MRSA are twice as high as other hospital stays, according to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. 

Historically, MRSA has been more costly to treat than MSSA, but according to a large 2019 study, that’s no longer the case. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that MSSA is just as expensive to treat and often more expensive. For example, in 2014, the estimated cost for MSSA-related pneumonia was $40,725, versus $38,561 for MRSA-related pneumonia. For other hospitalizations related to staph, the average price tag was $15,578 for MSSA and $14,792 for MRSA.

Prevention Strategies: MSSA vs MRSA

Healthcare providers have made great strides at reducing the risks of MRSA, but most hospitals still have work to do. With MSSA infection rates on the rise in communities, hospitals will likely be treating more infected or colonized patients, who could transmit the bacteria to other patients during a time when they’re already at high risk for infection. This underscores the need for healthcare providers to remain vigilant about both staph prevention and patient education.

To help reduce the spread of staph in communities, doctors should talk to their patients about effective infection prevention strategies, especially after surgery and before hospital discharge. According to the CDC, these tactics include: 

• proper and frequent handwashing
• keeping wounds clean and covered
• not sharing items that touch or pierce skin, such as towels, razors, or needles

The CDC also advises healthcare organizations to continue making staph prevention a top priority by “implementing CDC recommendations, including the use of Contact Precautions (gloves and gowns), continually reviewing their facility infection data available from CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), and considering other interventions … such as screening patients at high risk, or decolonization [during] high risk periods.”

Decolonization involves the use of CHG bathing or skin wipes, and a nasal antibiotic (e.g., mupirocin) or antiseptic (e.g., Nozin® Nasal Sanitizer® antiseptic). Unlike nasal antibiotic ointments, antiseptics don’t run the risk of becoming staph-resistant. Furthermore, antiseptics are effective almost immediately as opposed to antibiotics taking up to 5 days for nasal decolonization.

Other healthcare research organizations agree with the CDC’s recommendation to decolonize high-risk patients. Both the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and Health Research and Educational Trust have published similar guidelines. However, recent research suggests decolonization could play an even greater role in reducing MRSA and MSSA infections, especially in intensive care units where patients are most vulnerable. For instance, in a study of 43 hospitals and 74 ICUs, researchers from the University of California Irvine discovered that universal decolonization was more effective at preventing MRSA infections than targeted decolonization or using contact precautions for known staph carriers.

With MSSA on the rise and antibiotic resistance becoming an increasingly serious threat worldwide, the CDC, WHO, and other global health organizations continue to study further prevention methods and treatment strategies. Additionally, it is of critical importance for healthcare providers to stay up to date on staph infection best practices, and to keep personnel and patients educated about their role in preventing the spread of MRSA and MSSA.

If you would like to learn how Nozin infection prevention programs help mitigate MRSA and MSSA colonization risks, improve care and lower costs request a consultation with one of our advisors today!

The reasons for the appearance of dangerous strains of staphylococcus in the house are named

The most dangerous form of this bacterium is MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – “Staphylococcus aureus resistant to methicillin”). This is the name of any strain of Staphylococcus aureus, which has become resistant to a large group of popular antibiotics beta-lactams, which include the well-known penicillin. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is the main cause of dangerous nosocomial infections.In hospitals, there are many people with weak immunity, sick and wounded at the same time, and microorganisms can pass genes for resistance to many drugs to each other, so it is very difficult to fight nosocomial infections.

However, MRSA can acquire resistance and multiply not only in the hospital but also at home. Microbiologists decided to find out what this is connected with. To do this, they took microbiological samples in 65 homes, where adults or children were treated for Staphylococcus aureus with nasal ointments with the antibiotic mupirocin and body washes with chlorhexidine.Samples were taken again from the same homes three months after treatment. The control group became at home, where people were simply told about MRSA. For the purity of the experiment, scientists until the very end did not know where which samples were taken from.

The antibiotic clindamycin was not associated with the emergence of resistant strains, regardless of whether it was used in humans or pets. But treatment with mupirocin, which is used to fight infections of the skin and nasal passages, sometimes increased the resistance of bacteria in the house to mupirocin.”This could complicate treatment with mupirocin nasal ointments,” said co-author Jonathan Shahbazian of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Institute in Baltimore. He also found that all MRSA strains obtained from farmhouses were resistant to many antibiotics.

Another risk factor was the presence of pets, while mice, cockroaches and other unwanted “residents”, on the contrary, reduced the likelihood of the emergence of resistant strains.Microbiologists have suggested that people and pets infected with MRSA are spreading these strains in the home.

The results of this work will help microbiologists better understand in which houses and where dangerous strains of Staphylococcus aureus are hiding and how to deal with them.

definition “MRSA”: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

What does MRSA mean? MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. If you are visiting our non-English language version and would like to see the English version of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, please scroll down and you will see the English version of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.Keep in mind that the MRSA acronym is widely used in industries such as banking, computing, education, finance, government, and healthcare. In addition to MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus may be short for other contractions.

MRSA = Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Looking for a general definition of MRSA? MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. We are proud to list the abbreviation MRSA in the largest database of acronyms and acronyms.The following image shows one of the definitions of MRSA in English: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. You can download the image file for printing, or send it to your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok.

English MRSA Values ​​

As mentioned above, MRSA is used as an abbreviation in text messages to represent Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This page is all about the abbreviation MRSA and its meanings as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.Please note that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is not the only meaning of MRSA. There may be more than one definition of MRSA, so check it out against our dictionary for all MRSA meanings one by one.

English Definition: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

Other meanings MRSA

Apart from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA has other meanings. They are listed on the left below. Please scroll down and click to see each one.For all MRSA values, please click the “More” button. If you are visiting our English version and would like to see definitions of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in other languages, please click on the language menu on the right. You will see the meanings of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in many other languages ​​such as Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Hindi, Japan, Korean, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, etc.

90,000 The eternal battle between bacteria and medicine

MRSA, more commonly known as Staphylococcus aureus, can lead to infections of the skin, mucous membranes, bones, and heart valves, among other things.gettyimages

This content was published on Feb 18, 2015 – 10:30 am
18 February 2015 – 10:30

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He had a very ordinary life, he loved his job and was quite healthy, but one day he fell ill. It would seem, with whom does it not happen? But everything was much more complicated. The medications prescribed by the doctor had absolutely no effect on him.The patient was able to get back on his feet more or less only after a few weeks. The dangerous situation was caused by bacteria, which showed stable resistance to antibiotics. Today, the problem of resistance has become global. The best laboratories in Switzerland are also trying to work out a strategy to combat it.

It all started with an ordinary cough. After a few days later it intensified, H.K. *, a computer engineer, went to see his therapist. “He discovered I have SARS.A blood test showed that the inflammatory process continues to develop, so the doctor prescribed me a course of antibiotics. Five days passed, there was no improvement, on the contrary, the disease intensified, the prescribed antibiotics did not work, ”says HK, who was forced to stay in bed for several weeks due to the high temperature. “Finally, the doctor gave me another antibiotic, and after two days the first signs of improvement appeared.”

Not all patients are so lucky. According to some estimates, every year in the EU countries, due to bacterial infections, which the body could not cope with even with the support of antibiotics, 25 thousand die.human. The problem of antibiotic resistance has long been global. The World Health Organization (WHO) is sounding the alarm, and in Switzerland, famous for its highly developed pharmaceutical industry, scientists are now trying to develop strategies to combat the problem.

The relationship between medicine and veterinary medicine

According to the University of Bern, antibiotic resistance in humans is a problem potentially associated with similar problems in veterinary medicine.So far, however, this connection is not well understood.

It is known, however, that bacteria such as Salmonella in food can be transmitted from animals to humans through direct or indirect contact.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in farm animals are often identical to bacteria, which are a big problem for human medicine.

“Thus, microbiological research in the field of veterinary medicine is of great importance for the health and well-being of not only animals, but also people,” the experts point out.

Source: University of Bern.

End of insertion

Where did the resistance problem come from? As one of the main reasons, doctors call the too frequent and inadequate use of antibiotics in medicine, veterinary medicine and even in animal husbandry, because it is no secret that many farmers, in order, as they think, to forever eliminate the danger of cattle diseases, add strong antibiotics to feed. In addition, doctors are often mistaken with the dosage. As a result, bacteria do not die, but on the contrary, they adapt to the situation, survive and acquire resistance to common drugs, including antibiotics.

“Several fatal cases have already been reported in Switzerland due to the antibiotic resistance of pathogenic bacteria,” says Andreas Kronenberg of the Institute for Infectious Diseases (Institut für Infektionskrankheiten) at the University of Bern. He is also director of the Swiss Center for the Study of Antibiotic Resistance (Schweizerisches Zentrum für Antibiotikaresistenzen, external link).

Basic measures

Annelies Zinkernagel, chief physician of the infectious diseases department at the University Hospital Zurich, considers the widespread proliferation of so-called drug-resistant gram-negative bacteria as the biggest threat.They are becoming more and more due to the fact that antibiotics are currently too widely used in animal husbandry, are sometimes dispensed without a prescription and are generally used wastefully and thoughtlessly.

“It is very important that antibiotics are used selectively,” says A. Zinkernagel. “In addition, antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria are imported to us by tourists who have returned, for example, from India. These people are sometimes simply colonized by such pathogens, but this, however, does not automatically mean that they are all sick.People with strong immune systems may well stay healthy, even carrying multidrug-resistant bacteria. Most at risk are people with weakened immune systems. ”

That is why A. Zinkernagel emphasizes the importance of any measures that contribute to the rational use of medicines, as well as the promotion of hygiene and the prevention of infectious diseases. She emphasizes that the most effective are the old proven methods, known from childhood. For example, before traveling to an exotic country, you should definitely get the appropriate vaccinations, and while there, you need to wash your hands more often.

Switzerland in the company of the middle peasants

The website of the Center for the Study of Antibiotic Resistance says that antibiotic resistance is rapidly gaining momentum around the world, “reminiscent of an epidemic.” “General statistics do not yet exist, largely because it is necessary to clearly understand what specific microorganism and what antibiotic we are talking about,” says A. Cronenberg.

For example, the resistance of E. coli to antibiotics of the extended spectrum beta-lactamase group in Switzerland is currently growing by one percent per year.“In other countries, this process is even faster. In India, the resistance rate of this type of bacteria is generally already at the level of 80%, that is, the antibiotic when treating people works there only in one case out of five.

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The Swiss government recently proposed a ‘National Strategy to Combat Antimicrobial ResistanceExternal link’. Its ultimate goal is to maintain the long-term efficacy of antibiotics in the treatment of humans and animals.The strategy, developed on the basis of the expert potential of several federal departments of the country, aims to “unite the efforts of all interested parties, not to consider this problem only as a medical or veterinary one and stop shifting responsibility on each other,” explains A. Cronenberg.

At the heart of the strategy is “protecting our own populations, combating the spread of dangerous bacteria within the country and reducing the number of nosocomial infections.A lot can be achieved here very soon, ”he says.

“The key measure is interdisciplinary monitoring of the situation in the field of antibiotic use and resistance in human medicine, veterinary medicine, agriculture and the environment,” the document says. Until March of this year, the strategy will be discussed by all stakeholders and organizations. The Federal Council is expected to adopt it at the end of 2015 after reviewing the clarifications and additions made.

Do you have a plan?

Attempts to understand the mechanism of the emergence of antibiotic resistance are now being made all over the world. At the end of 2014, WHO published the most comprehensive report to date on this topic. It, in particular, indicates that the resistance of some types of bacteria to antibiotics in many regions of the world has already reached alarming proportions. At the 68th session of the WHO World Assembly, which is scheduled for May 2015, this organization intends to discuss a global action plan to combat resistance.

Everyone understands that the time has come for decisive action, because otherwise most of the breakthroughs made in medicine over the past hundred years will be nullified. “Without urgent, coordinated action, the global community will move faster and faster towards the moment when even the simplest infections and minor injuries – which can be effectively treated today – will again have fatal consequences,” stresses Keiji Fukuda. Assistant Director-General for Health Security, WHO.

The authors of the report, which are based on data from 114 countries, are particularly concerned about resistance to so-called reserve antibiotics. Recall that the so-called second-line reserve drugs include drugs that have a weaker effect on bacteria and more often cause side effects, but at the same time they are effective in patients who are resistant to first-line drugs. And now this second line of defense in the fight against bacteria has practically ceased to operate in many regions.

Test-tube saviors

The first synthetic antibiotic salvarsan was created in 1907 by the German chemist Paul Ehrlich. It was used to treat syphilis. In 1928, as a result of an accidental discovery, the British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming obtained the antibiotic penicillin from a strain of the fungus of the species Penicillium notatum. Currently, many bacteria are already immune to it.

Since about the beginning of the 20th century, antibiotics have been one of the pillars of modern medicine, helping to fight previously incurable diseases.The emergence of bacterial resistance to certain types of antibiotics is a serious problem, since it calls into question many established methods of treating infections caused by bacteria, microbes, parasites and fungi.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can lead to urethritis of various etymologies, pneumonia, blood infections, diarrhea and gonorrhea. Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) resistant to antibiotics of the methicillin group, as well as multi-resistant bacteria, can cause nosocomial infections.

Antibiotic resistance causes more severe disease. It increases the risk of death and increases health care costs, because in severe cases, treatment takes longer, the patient stays in the clinic longer and receives more intensive care.

Source: WHO

End of insertion

For example, carbapenem antibiotics are becoming less effective against life-threatening hospital infections caused by the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae, also known as Friedlander’s wand.The effectiveness of antibiotics of the fluoroquinolone group, which are used, as a rule, to treat infections caused by various types of Escherichia coli, has also noticeably decreased.

In order to somehow turn the tide, WHO now recommends that doctors prescribe antibiotics only when, when it is really necessary and not to interrupt treatment, even if the patient’s condition has improved. In addition, the Organization is demanding the development and implementation of a dedicated monitoring system to track the antibiotic resistance situation, while calling for decisive action to improve public hygiene and to scale up research efforts, where there is now a clear gap.

In the public interest?

Recently, large pharmaceutical companies are in no hurry to start developing new types of antibiotics. What is the reason for this? “There are many reasons for this,” says Sara Käch, head of public relations for the Swiss industry group Interpharma.

“There is now a widespread belief in the medical community that it is in the public interest that antibiotics should be prescribed in very limited quantities. Therefore, it is no coincidence that, in principle, they began to be produced in smaller quantities, which led to a decrease in manufacturers’ incomes.In addition, at present, the number of patients requiring antibiotics is relatively small, and antibiotics with a dissimilar mechanism of action on the same bacteria are especially in demand. All this reduces the attractiveness of investments in this area. ”

Multibacterial resistance, that is, the immunity of a given type of bacteria to the effects of a number of antibiotics at once, is a very complex scientific problem. “Fortunately, recently we have witnessed a number of initiatives to change the situation in this area, and their authors are both private pharmaceutical firms and companies, and structures that emerged in the framework of public-private partnerships,” reminds Sarah Keh

An example of this is, for example, the New Drugs 4 Bag Bugs Initiative, which is supported by the European Commission and many of the major players in the global pharmaceutical industry.The participants in this initiative point out that over the past 30 years, only two groups of qualitatively new antibiotics have entered the market, which is an unacceptable lag. Of note is the DRIVE-AB project External Link, the most recent EU initiative to promote research into the development of new generations of antibiotics.

What bacteria are capable of

So there is hope for new methods of treatment, especially if we take into account the latest scientific breakthroughs, such as, for example, the synthesis of a completely new antibiotic called teixobactin by German and American microbiologists at Northeastern University of Boston in early January 2015 (Teixobactin).Experts say the drug is active against bacteria that have developed resistance to existing approved antibiotics, but it still has five to ten years, at best, before it is certified and released to the mass market.

“So it cannot be argued that the area of ​​antibiotic production is not at all interesting for investors. And if we are now seeing some delay in the appearance of new drugs on the market, it is only because the industry needs a certain amount of time to develop new formulas, ”says Marcel Sennhauser of Scienceindustries, the structure coordinating the cooperation companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.“So, given the sheer number of regulations and the high mutation rates of bacteria we know, developing the drugs of the future is a daunting task.”

Finally, there is a subjective factor here. “Residents of developed countries simply do not fully understand what, in principle, bacteria are capable of and what price will have to be paid if the irreparable happens and they get out of our control,” says M. Zennhauser. “Most people, unlike doctors and clinic staff, still think that everything is going according to plan.They do not realize the real scale of the danger. ”

As for our lucky patient named H.K., from his long history with antibiotics, he still managed to extract something positive. “During my illness, I lost eight kilograms,” he says, laughing. – “After a year, however, the weight came back.”

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Struggle for survival. Will humanity die due to antibiotic resistance

Three years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that humanity could be left without effective drugs against infections and plunge into a post-antibiotic era. In other words, any surgery, including a cesarean section, a minor scratch with an infection, pneumonia, or tuberculosis is likely to result in death.Treatment of non-lethal bacterial diseases will become protracted and painful. Even the cases of bubonic plague in the United States in August 2017, which look like horror stories in the presentation of the tabloids, could turn into a terrible global epidemic in a world without antibiotics.

The plague epidemic in 1665 took one in four Londoners – will it happen again in a world without antibiotics? Now there is resistance to the most commonly used drugs, and even the latest generation of antibiotics stop working.In addition,

Multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ( Staphylococcus aureus , MRSA) is one of the main threats to humanity. It is difficult to treat, is life threatening, and can lead to sepsis, pneumonia, and bloodstream infections. According to statistics, more than 18,000 people die from MRSA every year, and five times more are infected with it (only invasively, during operations). What’s more, nearly 9 out of 10 infections with resistant Staphylococcus aureus occur in hospitals while a patient is being treated for another disease.

It turns out that arriving for treatment at the hospital, patients can already be infected with this deadly microorganism. The probability of such an event is still low, but further it will be explained why the situation will only get worse. Therefore, antibiotic resistance (ADB) requires immediate action by health organizations and the general public, and this year’s World Antibiotic Awareness Week, announced by WHO, took place on 13-19 November.

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World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2017 falls on 13-19 November.

According to the latest WHO data, three items in the list of 10 leading causes of death in the world are occupied by bacterial infections or diseases mediated by them (respiratory infections of the lower respiratory tract, diarrheal diseases and tuberculosis). And every tenth person in the world dies from them.

Global annual mortality from the most common drug-resistant strains of infections is estimated at at least 700,000 people. If the situation does not change, 100 million people will die prematurely by 2030, and in 35 years this figure will reach 300 million.Global annual mortality due to ADB will reach 10 million by 2050.

Global mortality by 2050, according to the British study Review on Antimicrobial Resistance: ADB will kill more people than from cancer and diabetes combined · Review on Antimicrobial Resistance

“If we cannot influence this in any way, then we are faced with an almost unthinkable scenario in which antibiotics stop working, and we return to the dark ages of medicine,” commented David Cameron, former British Prime Minister.

From the first discoveries to the present day

For thousands of years, mankind has been fighting against microorganisms. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered by Briton Alexander Fleming in 1928. This group of drugs began to be widely used in the clinic only in the 40s. The next two decades are considered the golden era of antibiotics, but gradually the pace of discovery faded, and now there are very few antibacterial drugs on the market.

Chronological tape of the discovery of new antibiotics.After the golden era of antibiotics, new developments abruptly ceased to appear on the market. · Bloomberg

Much attention is paid to substances that target the cell wall of bacteria, which often protects the microorganism from the action of antibiotics, like armor. One of these promising drugs is teixobactin. It is also known for the fact that its developers have created a unique technology for the cultivation of microorganisms iChip, which can greatly facilitate the search for new antibiotics. Another promising drug is lugdunin.It effectively treats multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the world’s most dangerous superbug. Unfortunately, however, there is no guarantee that bacteria will not develop resistance to these drugs.

Worldwide consumption of antibiotics increased by more than a third between 2000 and 2010, according to researchers from Princeton University. Five countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) – are responsible for three quarters of this surge.

The United States is also contributing.Although the total amount of antibacterial drugs taken over this period has not changed much compared to the BRICS, much more antibiotics are consumed in America per capita than in any other country: for example, the difference with India is more than double.

The yellow spheres in the photo – multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) – one of the main threats to humanity (magnification 20,000 times) · National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

How does ADB come about?

One of the origins of ADB · Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

When people talk about ADB, they mean that microorganisms survive after being exposed to drugs that previously killed them or at least stopped their growth.However, this is by no means a new phenomenon: it is a natural process that has been known to exist since the discovery of these drugs. Nevertheless, the problem has become global only recently due to the excessive use of antibiotics in many areas of human life, including medicine and animal husbandry.

Who is to blame?

Large pharmaceutical companies have stopped investing in research on new antibiotics in recent years. Between 2003 and 2013, venture capital investment in antibiotic research and development was less than 5%: just $ 1.8 billion out of $ 38 billion.Pfizer closed a dedicated antibiotic development center in Connecticut in 2011 and refocused in part on antibiotic vaccine research. Pharmaceutical giants that are abandoning such developments are Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly. AstraZeneca was one of the last to surrender: the British first reduced their investments in this industry, and last year they completely sold their business for the study of small molecules of antibiotics in the later stages of research for more than $ 1.5 billion.Instead, the company plans to focus on respiratory, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders and cancer.

GlaxoSmithKline, one of the few remaining large companies in the industry, has spent about $ 1 billion of its own money over the past 10 years on research to find new antibacterial drugs. But they are spending more than just their own funds: The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has provided them with a total of more than $ 200 million in antibiotic research funding.

Research results for their new drug, hepotidacin, look promising – but it is still a long way from entering the market.

Why have there been so few new antibiotics recently? How is it that, in the words of Annette Heinzelmann from Médecins Sans Frontières, the existing R&D (research & development) system in pharmaceuticals does not always develop exactly the drugs that are needed? The answer is simple: the process of developing a drug and bringing it to market is too costly and time-consuming, there is no guarantee of success, and sales profits are too small.However, there was no support from governments, international health organizations and bodies regulating the process of approving new drugs. The long neglect of the problem by the authorities of different countries further worsened the situation.

A drug launch costs about $ 1 billion could take a decade, according to Roy Anderson of Imperial College London and GlaxoSmithKline councilor. In addition, costs can rise unpredictably, as complex clinical trials are required in patients with life-threatening infections, and in the end, according to Pew Charitable Trusts, after testing in humans, regulators approve only one in five antibiotics.

Not much can be expected from sales either due to low prices for antibiotics. “Usually everyone writes that, in general, medicines are too expensive, but in the case of antibiotics, they are too cheap. Big Pharma has decided to redirect R&D towards so-called chronic therapy, and they are looking for drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, hypertension or diabetes, ”says Graham Lumsden, CEO of MotifBio, a fledgling antibiotic development company, to DDD magazine.MotifBio’s most successful development, the antibiotic Iclaprim against resistant staphylococci, is now in its final stages of clinical trials.

Such explanations are given by the managers of the largest pharmaceutical companies. “The market niche for a new antibiotic is very small, there is no profit, and capital is not flowing,” says Paul Stoffels, head of Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. “In the case of oncology, people pay $ 30,000, $ 50,000, $ 80,000 (per patient) for the drug, while for an antibiotic it is only a few hundred dollars.”

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The state is on guard

For the state, antibiotic resistance is a dangerous threat not only to the lives of citizens, but also to the budget. In the United States alone, an additional $ 20 billion is spent annually on healthcare. The American economy is also suffering: losses due to reduced labor productivity are estimated at $ 35 billion. The cost of fighting the ADB by 2050 will cost the world a huge amount: up to 3.5% of its total GDP, or up to $ 100 trillion. In the more foreseeable future, global GDP will decrease by 0.5% by 2020 and by 1.4% by 2030.

To prevent this, many countries have decided to act individually and collectively. This has led to the creation of many programs to combat bacterial resistance. Their main postulates converge: it is an improvement in the diagnosis of infectious diseases and the identification of resistant bacteria, a change in the approach to the use of antibiotics in various fields, including animal husbandry, the development of new drugs and antimicrobial vaccines, and, finally, the unification of states, the pharmaceutical industry, the scientific community and ordinary people to fight – in fact, for the survival of mankind.

Methods of combating drug resistance on all fronts: a strategy proposed based on the results of the British study Review in Antimicrobial Resistance · The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance the site belongs to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition, Congress passed the Drug and Consumer Product Control Innovation and Safety Act in 2012.The eighth part of the law became widely known under the acronym GAIN (Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now, literally “creating conditions for investment in antibiotics now”). She called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – the main body overseeing the approval process for new drugs in the United States – to take steps to encourage manufacturers to invest in antibiotic development. Among other things, it was instrumental in speeding up the approval process for these drugs and providing an additional five years of market exclusivity.As a result, the FDA had to revise and draw up new clear recommendations for the development of antibiotics that target specific bacteria. Unfortunately, this initiative was not fully crowned with success – this year, pharmaceutical companies have asked for clarification of this act.

The US also teamed up with the UK to create CARB-X, arguably the largest public-private partnership in the world. Its goal is preclinical studies of antibiotics, for which about half a billion dollars have been allocated.

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In addition, the UK and China have agreed to contribute $ 72 million each to the newly created Global Innovation Fund, whose goal is to partner with similar organizations and coordinate research funding for ADB around the world.

In addition, in 2014, Big Pharma represented by Astellas, AstraZeneca, Cubist, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Pfizer and Sanofi joined the EU DRIVE-AB (Driving Reinvestment in R&D and Responsible Antibiotic Use) initiative to develop new, more financially profitable economic antibiotic research models.Participants hope that in the end it will be possible to develop a strategy to attract investment in this area.

Finally, pharmaceutical companies formed their coalition to monitor bacterial resistance last year. The cornerstone of this alliance was the Declaration on Antibiotic Resistance, adopted by the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic industries. The results of their work will be announced in 2018.

Russian situation

How is the fight against ADB going in Russia? On the one hand, the reality of the threat is obvious to everyone.For example, a map of the sensitivity of microorganisms to antibiotics was created throughout the country, and the Ministry of Health, just a couple of months ago, submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation the “Strategy for preventing the spread of antimicrobial resistance in the Russian Federation for the period until 2030”. And at the Moscow International Forum “Open Innovations” in 2017, in the discussion on antibiotic resistance, they emphasized the need to create a working group and program on the basis of Skolkovo to combat antibiotic resistance, similar to those already developed in other countries.

On the other hand, this did not affect the receipt of funds from the state, and research on the creation of new antibiotics is not being conducted. At least that’s the opinion of Vladimir Rafalsky, director of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology and a member of the Presidium of the Alliance of Clinical Chemotherapists and Microbiologists. “New molecules are not created … The reason for this situation is commonplace – lack of funding,” – says the expert, according to the resource “Medvestnik”. However, some Russian scientists are planning to independently bring their developments to the market.Researchers from the company “Allopharm” have been studying the antimicrobial molecules of the immune system of insects for a long time, which protect them from bacteria in natural conditions. Now they are working on the FLIP7 complex. It is a combination of peptides from four families: defensins, cecropins, diptericins and proline-rich peptides. The first ones are mainly aimed at the membranes of gram-positive bacteria (all bacteria are divided into gram-positive and gram-negative depending on the reaction to staining with a specific reagent: the difference is due to the different composition and thickness of the bacterial cell wall), the second and third – on gram-negative, and the latter are aimed at intracellular targets.Those bacteria that are sensitive to such a “cocktail” do not develop resistance to it. The synthesis of the complex of active substances FLIP7 has already been established and worked out, as well as the method of combating bacterial films when using FLIP7 with an antibiotic. In addition, the company received a patent for an invention for a period until 2030 and applied for a patent for a method for increasing the antibiofilm activity of antibiotics by using it together with the FLIP7 complex.

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More than $ 500,000 has already been invested in the development over five years.Experts from Skolkovo recognized it as technically feasible, competitive and with potential for commercialization. Now the company is looking for venture investments to create an automated industrial line for mass biosynthesis and assembly of the FLIP7 complex.

A promising new object for researchers is potentiators, compounds that, in combination with an antibiotic, enhance its effect. They fight bacteria that are already resistant to treatment, do not require the development of new ones, and, possibly, will help return old antibiotics to the clinic.

Similar potentiators are now being actively studied by a team of Russian scientists from Superbug Solutions UK Ltd. (Sbsplatform.io), a Skolkovo resident. Researchers are working on molecules of the alkylresorcinol class – in natural conditions, such compounds are secreted, for example, by microbes and plants to protect against parasites. They penetrate the interior of the bacteria and disrupt the work of key processes of its vital activity, acting on several targets simultaneously: membranes, various proteins and the bacterial genome.As a result, the microorganism develops stress, and the antibiotic gains easier access to its target.

The best results from the use of alkylresorcinols can be achieved in combination with antimicrobial agents. This shock combination of high doses of the antibiotic with the molecules of interest was called a “superbullet”. The number of bacteria that survive an attack with such a weapon is 3-5 orders of magnitude lower (1000-100,000 times) compared to the action of an antibiotic alone. The developers argue that the effectiveness of the treatment of infectious diseases using such binary drugs is increased, even if the disease is caused by drug-resistant pathogens.In this case, the development of drug resistance slows down by a factor of 10-30. The minimum inhibitory concentration, that is, the lowest concentration of the drug that completely inhibits the growth of bacteria, in some cases decreased up to 500 times.

Having studied many alkylresorcinols, the researchers chose the most promising of them – M13 (the exact formula is a trade secret). Studies in mice infected with the deadly Klebsiella infection have shown that the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment in combination with M13 does increase.

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The European Commission recognized the development as competitive and innovative, and also recommended for investment in the European Union program for research and innovation “Horizon 2020” (Horizon 2020). Superbug Solutions has planned future alkylresorcinol experiments and is currently working with 19 effective antibiotic combinations.

After these experiments, the developers will move on to clinical research.Funds for testing and promoting the drug are expected to be raised through international crowdfunding without attracting funding from Big Pharma.

Conclusion

Antibiotic resistance “infects” more and more new strains of bacteria, and there are still few tools to combat it. What’s next: the dark ages of medicine without antibiotics, or a new world with a different approach to treating infections? Perhaps the question rests on the extent to which it will be possible to unite common efforts to combat ADB and involve the public in this war – after all, it concerns everyone.However, the outcome of this battle is not yet clear.

The text was published within the special project of Forbes and the popular science portal “Biomolecule”, dedicated to the achievements of molecular biology and their implementation in biotechnology and medicine. An extended version of the article is available on the Biomolecules website.

Honey is stronger than antibiotics

The technogenic world is in constant competition with nature. A person invents a new antibiotic, and the bacteria mutates into a resistant strain. Then you have to turn to natural medicines again.

There are not so many substances that would be both tasty and certainly useful at the same time. One of the universal remedies is honey, its healing properties continue to amaze materialists and scientists.

Honey Manuka

Rumors Rumors circulated in the media several years ago that Michael Jackson was infected with one of the MRSA strains.

Manuka tea tree blooms with beautiful white and pink flowers. The bees are happy to collect pollen from them, and the result is the famous New Zealand honey.This particular variety of honey and its antibacterial properties were studied by doctors from the University of Wales Institute – Cardiff. Scientists have discovered that honey inhibits the reproduction of such a dangerous microorganism as Staphylococcus aureus. Moreover, the sweetness kills even methicillin-resistant strains that respond very poorly to classical treatment, sometimes causing severe nosocomial epidemics.

According to official data There have been no MRSA outbreaks in Russia yet.In the Russian Federation, “superinfections” hardly appear. This is due to the fact that domestic medicine has long used only a limited number of antibiotics, often outdated, in therapy.

The research team of Dr. Rowena Jenkins conducted experiments on growing two groups of antibiotic-resistant microbes: one of them was exposed to honey, and sugar syrup was added to the other. As a result, the colonies of “honey” staphylococci practically did not grow, while the second group multiplied with the usual intensity.It turned out that honey binds one of the proteins necessary for the formation of the cell wall of dangerous bacteria, preventing their further division. In addition, the acid in honey breaks the membranes of microorganisms.

Resistant staphylococcus

Meticillin-resistant strains of this bacterium (international abbreviation MRSA – Meticillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) are today considered a significant threat to the health and even the future of humanity. Staphylococcus aureus lives freely on the skin of at least half of us.Resistant variants of the microbe, such as a hospital infection, have emerged as a result of the active, sometimes illiterate and unjustified use of antibiotics. However, at present, every tenth outbreak of this infection occurs already from community-acquired strains. At the same time, MRSA acts with lightning speed, causes severe purulent lesions of soft tissues, lungs, brain, sometimes sepsis, an infectious blood infection, fraught with death, can develop in a day.

There is still no reliable treatment, and every third patient dies.In total, up to 18 thousand people die from such an infection in the world every year. Over the past many years, doctors in the UK, Australia and the USA have been looking for scientific confirmation of the effect of natural antiseptic substances, which include honey, in particular, on staphylococcus aureus.

Information on MDG15-1 and MDG16-1

General information on MDG15-1 and MDG16-1

Kill these germs

Research shows that society underestimates the danger of resistant bacteria.Thousands of people become their victims. And soon nothing could help.

November 20, 2014, 7:58 am. Updated on August 24, 2015 3:34 pm.

Computer-stained presentation of methicillin-resistant bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) © dpa

The microbe that is about to destroy mankind’s most brutal medical weapon looks like a spherical grape measuring only one thousandth of a millimeter under the microscope. His name sounds imperceptible: MRSA .

MP stands for methicillin resistant. The abbreviation refers to the microbe as special, as dangerous. For years, mankind believed that it had found the best weapon against infectious diseases in the world: antibiotics. Since then, no one should die from pneumonia or dental surgery. However, microorganisms such as MRSA have become resistant to almost all common antibiotics in recent years. They are not easy to kill anymore.

One in three is estimated to carry MRSA
on the skin or nose.This is not bad at first glance. It is bad when people come to the hospital, when they are cut open and subjected to surgery, or when a catheter is placed in the blood vessels. Then the microbe can get inside the body. He usually walks quickly and causes diseases that are difficult to treat: open and painful wounds, in the worst cases pneumonia or blood poisoning. In older people and people with weakened immune systems, these diseases are often fatal.

Resistant bacteria

MRSA
Staphylococcus aureus, resistant to methicillin, is a resistant bacterial species that has proliferated since the introduction of antibiotics in the 1960s.It is resistant to all so-called beta-lactam antibiotics, that is, antibiotics based on penicillin. In general, MRSA bacteria are also resistant to other antibiotics and therefore multi-resistant. Therefore, some people use the abbreviation MRSA also for multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase ESBL
are enzymes capable of cleaving beta-lactam-containing antibiotics. Thus, the so-called ESBL-producing bacteria are resistant to these antibiotics.Like other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they should be treated with carbapenems as extensively as possible.

VRE Vancomycin-resistant enterococci are streptococcal bacteria that are resistant to the storage antibiotic vancomycin. Due to many other antibiotic resistance, treatment options for VRE are severely limited.

CARPAPENEM
Carbapenems belong to the group of beta-lactam antibiotics. However, because their basic structure is highly resistant to the destructive enzymes of bacteria, they are used as so-called backup antibiotics – when conventional antibiotics stop working.Because of their strong side effects such as new resistance, they are only used for difficult-to-control infections. But there are growing cases where bacteria are also resistant to this reserve.

LIFE
The survival of germs like MRSA or VRE on surfaces like doorknobs cannot be seriously determined. It depends on too many factors: the texture of the surface and the number of microbes, temperature and humidity affect the duration of their existence.However, it can be assumed that microbes can survive for several weeks under certain conditions.

The duration of the so-called human colonization even by microbes cannot be determined in principle. MRSA (nasal) and VRE (usually rectal) can last a lifetime in the human body, but pathogens can disappear even after a few days. Influencing factors for colonization time may be the site of colonization or antibiotic treatment.

We have important information about:

UV light 253.7 nm ,

UV light 450 nm ,

UV treatment of bacterial suspensions,

research Microbiology

and

Petri dish with bacteria, on a black background.

Procedure – Disinfection with

UV-C – Light, Ozone and Impact Test

1. Clean the disinfection area as usual.

2. Time between cleanings 1.
and disinfection2. Generally, should not be more than 2 hours.

3. Please after cleaning 1. Do not open windows and doors to the outside (avoid external influences).

4. For UV-C – light / OZON disinfection and wiping tests, several test points are set and marked so as to accurately record the same test points in the preliminary test.

5. Petri dishes are marked in accordance with the following procedure: control point 1 = 1 / I, for before and

1 / II, for subsequent, control point 2 = 2 / I, for before and 2 / II for subsequent and td, checkpoints are recorded in precisely defined and recorded in the log.

6. “Before test” is removed at predetermined test points (please attach the label and stick the adhesive tape).

7. Mobile disinfector MDG16-1, placed in the room and turned on.

8. After disinfection, the “retest” is carried out at the same control points.

9. After disinfection, when OZON is used, the “OZON-containing air” is vented with a fan, so that the room is again freely accessible to everyone.

1. = Through the plant to be disinfected.

2. = By the performer.

The before-after procedure also performs a quick test to show the result in advance.

Microbiological examination test report, will be sent to the company., Immediately upon receipt.

We tested them in various places and institutions to illustrate them all here, they would probably distract too much from the essential and not point to “ special area of ​​responsibility ” for them.

That is why we offer you a special request to request the tests relevant to you via PDF , we will send them to you immediately.

Here is a short excerpt from tests carried out with the

mobile disinfector MDG16-1 .

1. Laboratory test

Microbiological test report, laboratory Becker & Kollegen MVZ GbR,

Munich;

2. Microbiological investigation report, Munich Butchery;

3. 1st microbiological test report, Large bakery in Upper Bavaria;

4. 2nd test report for microbiology, large bakery in Upper Bavaria;

5.Microbiological test report, hotel in Bad Wiessee;

6. Microbiological examination test report, Weissach Medical Center;

More tests planned soon.

Our tests were carried out:

1. Laboratory Becker & Kollegen MVZ GbR, Munich.

2. Laboratory of cost center Ravensburg Gbr.

How effective is doxycycline for MRSA?

There are a number of serious problems in the treatment of the bacteria known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).This particular bacterium is immune to many of the common antibiotics commonly used to kill germs. Doxycycline, a powerful antibiotic that disrupts the protein-making ability of bacteria, has been shown to be effective against most strains of this infectious organism. For this reason, taking doxycycline for MRSA infections is one of the first line drugs recommended by many healthcare professionals.

Skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) are one of the ways MRSA typically presents in patients.These infections can include various strains of MRSA bacteria. Doctors usually prescribe doxycycline for MRSA, which causes SSTI, because this medication can usually kill most strains of bacteria. Consequently, its use negates the need to identify the exact bacterial strain and determine which antibiotics are effective against that strain. The low cost of this antibiotic means that communities can easily use it to fight epidemics.

Studies have shown that taking doxycycline for MRSA can be beneficial in most cases.One study in which patients with SSTI were treated with different types of antibiotics effective against MRSA found that doxycycline alone had a 100% success rate. All patients treated with doxycycline experienced complete relief from their infection after 14 days of treatment. Even among strains of MRSA that are resistant to multiple types of antibiotics, this drug tends to have 80-95% success rates.

Many antibiotics given in a hospital setting are given intravenously (IV).Doxycycline for MRSA is provided as an oral tablet due to its strength and ability to be fully absorbed into the bloodstream. This drug has a relatively long half-life of 18 to 22 hours, or the time it takes for the body to break down and release half of a given amount of the drug. The long half-life means that doxycycline does not need to be taken more than once a day. In turn, it is more likely that patients will regularly take medication until the infection is completely healed.

Side effects may occur when taking doxycycline for MRSA. These side effects can include nausea, headache, and diarrhea. Some of these side effects can be confused with the symptoms of the infection itself, so watch closely when these effects occur. Dizziness and severe headaches can be signs of more serious health problems and should be reported to your doctor if they occur.