WASHINGTON – A dangerous germ whose symptoms are easily mistaken for a routine skin infection has become alarmingly common around the United States, raising concern that seemingly minor boils, pimples and abscesses could increasingly become disfiguring or even life-threatening, researchers reported Wednesday.
Because the microbe has become invulnerable to the most commonly used antibiotics, the discovery means doctors should now routinely test all skin infections to identify patients who need urgent treatment with one of the handful of drugs still capable of killing the aggressive pathogen, experts said.
“This should serve as a red flag to doctors whenever they are treating skin infections,” said Scott Fridkin of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who led the study reported in today’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. “This is a new bug that has emerged in the community. It’s a cause for concern.”
The widespread emergence of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus is the latest manifestation of the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, a trend that has seen an increasing number of microorganisms evolve into strains that defeat many of modern medicine’s most important weapons.
“This is just another sign that, unfortunately, the bugs are winning,” said Loren Miller of the UCLA School of Medicine, the lead author of a companion paper describing 14 cases of people stricken by “flesh-eating” cases of the infection.
“We’re used to resistant staph in the hospital as a problem among patients with heart failure, liver failure, cancer or other health problems,” said David Gilbert of the Oregon Health &Science University. “It’s started attacking normal healthy people, causing serious, often fatal illness.”
The germ, which is spread by casual contact, produces potent toxins that kill disease-fighting white blood cells. That rapidly turns minor rug burns, cuts and other skin infections into serious health problems, apparently including fast-moving “necrotizing” abscesses that literally eat away tissue. Previously, such cases were thought to be caused only by strep bacteria.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
