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StaphAseptic™ News
Children in Intensive Care Should Be Screened for MRSA
March 31, 2010
Business Week
HealthDay News
By Robert Preidt
Community-acquired, drug-resistant bacterial infections are becoming more common among children in hospital intensive care units, so patients should be screened when they're admitted and weekly thereafter, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that 6 percent of the 1,674 children admitted to the pediatric ICU unit at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center between 2007 and 2008 were colonized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This means the children carried MRSA even though they didn't have an active infection -- and they could have unknowingly infected other patients.
Sixty percent of the children with MRSA would have gone unrecognized if the hospital had not conducted the screenings, researchers say.
Of the 72 children who tested positive for MRSA, 66 underwent tests to "fingerprint" the germ. More than 60 percent were found to harbor the community-acquired strain, a particularly virulent form of the germ.
This is a portion of the original article. To keep reading, visit Businessweek.com
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