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Community MRSA is re-emergence of 1950s pandemic, study suggests

An early type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that caused a global epidemic of infections in the 1950s has re-emerged as one of the community-acquired MRSA 'superbugs', according to a study published in The Lancet tomorrow (Saturday 2 April 2005). This "re-equipping and re-emergence" of a clone that caused a pandemic 40-50 years ago could mean that community acquired MRSA will spread fast...

MRSA study demonstrates need for frequent hand washing and environmental disinfection in health care settings

A major cause of hospital-acquired infections can persist for days and even weeks on environmental surfaces found in healthcare settings, including bed linens, computer keyboard covers and acrylic fingernails, according to research presented today at the 105th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major cause of ho...

MRSA use amoeba to spread, new research shows

The MRSA 'superbug' evades many of the measures introduced to combat its spread by infecting a common single-celled organism found almost everywhere in hospital wards, according to new research published in the journal Environmental Microbiology. Scientists from the University of Bath have shown that MRSA infects and replicates in a species of amoeba, called Acanthamoeba polyphaga, which i...

Single cell amoeba increases MRSA numbers 1000- fold

Scientists in the UK have found that a type of amoeba acts as an incubator for MRSA bacteria. As amoebae are often found in healthcare environments this discovery has implications for the infection control strategies adopted by hospitals. The single cell amoeba, Acanthamoeba polyphagam commonly eats and digests environmental bacteria. It also engulfs pathogens such as MRSA. However, instea...

MRSA vaccine shows promise in mouse study

By combining the four bacterial surface proteins that generate the strongest immune response in mice, researchers at the University of Chicago have created a vaccine that significantly protects immunized animals from multiple disease-causing, drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the most common cause of hospital-acquired infections and a rapidly spreading source of community-associate...

MRSA toxin acquitted: Study clears suspected key to severe bacterial illness

Researchers who thought they had identified the bacterial perpetrator of the often severe disease caused by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) had better keep looking: Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have exonerated a toxin widely thought to be the guilty party....

New antibacterials being developed to tackle MRSA superbug

A novel antibacterial medicine that kills the superbug MRSA is being developed under a new scheme launched by the Wellcome Trust. The Seeding Drug Discovery initiative is aimed at catalysing the development of new drugs in areas of unmet need. Prolysis, an R&D company based in Oxford, has received one of three inaugural Seeding Drug Discovery awards for its new antibacterial compounds...

Maggots rid patients of MRSA

University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA - by treating their foot ulcers with maggots. Professor Andrew Boulton and his team used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetic patients whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA and found all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, much quicker than the 28-week duration for th...