MRSA Action UK remembers all those lost to MRSA and healthcare associated infections on World MRSA Day
It is World MRSA Day today and our colleagues from the USA, MRSA Survivors’ Network, have described MRSA as a pandemic and called on healthcare colleagues to take the lead from the UK approach with detection and interventions to bring MRSA under control.
We share their concerns, as the bacterium that results in this resistant pathogen Staphylococcus aureus (staph), causes significant suffering and mortality and is found ubiquitously on our skin, around a third of the population at any given time will carry it. The meticillin resistant strain, MRSA, will be found in around 6% of us that carry staph. In England we are seeing around 400 bloodstream infections in our hospitals each year, but this remains a small proportion of people affected. This is only around 10% of staph bloodstream infections, and there is no consistent reporting of the problem in relation to surgical wounds infected with staph, despite the interventions that are being put in place to deal with them. We still need improvements on reporting, being open and honest gives patients more confidence and will help healthcare providers see the impact of their care.
Infection prevention and control is such an important aspect of care and as we are seeing healthcare workers becoming infected with the deadly virus Ebola, it reminds us of the vital job that infection preventionists have to do.
An international meeting is being held in England today to discuss the Ebola virus. There have been more than 7,000 people infected, with 3,000 deaths and by January there could be 1.4 million. Victims are succumbing to Ebola at the staggering rate of 5 people an hour and this has to be amongst the worst infectious disease crises we have seen in modern times.
America’s first Ebola patient was being treated after coming into contact with the deadly virus working as a nurse in Africa. Dr Tara Palmore, Hospital Epidemiologist, National Institutes of Health Clinical Centre, conducted her talk on Carbapenem Resistant Organisms and how to track and beat outbreaks over the telephone at the Infection Prevention Society conference in Glasgow on Tuesday. She was unable to join us in person as the nurse was being taken to their facility for treatment.
The virus was the subject of concern and discussion amongst delegates at the society’s annual conference. Delegates from MRSA Action UK spoke of how the success with the control of MRSA bloodstream infections here in the UK showed how good infection prevention and control can bring epidemics under control.
As we remember all those who have been lost, and all those who have had life changing experiences due to MRSA, we will remember and pay our respects to all those lost to infectious disease and think of the healthcare workers treating them.
Derek Butler
Chair
MRSA Action UK
http://mrsaactionuk.net
Telephone: 07762 741114
Derek.butler@mrsaactionuk.net
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