MRSA or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a superbug bacterium which has over the years developed resistance to anti-biotic. Staphylococcus is a group of bacteria, commonly known as Staph, which can cause a multitude of diseases.
Each year thousands of people are diagnosed of this infection and in most cases are unable to fight it. The cause for this is due to the wide spread of this disease which can easily happen through a carrier of the bacterium, which in most cases are unaware of its existence in the body. General contact of skin or body fluids transmit the bacteria which means those who engage in contact sports even health-care workers can positively be carriers of the infection.
The risk of MRSA is that it can easily be transmitted but not so easily detected. One can suspect the infection by general symptoms such as fever, vomiting, chills, low blood pressure, weakness and mental deterioration. However, the difficulty with this bacterium is that once a certain kind of anti-biotic is prescribed for the detected stage it may not have a chance of completely eliminating the bacteria from the body as the bacteria may develop a resistance towards it.
Hence, medical professionals insist that proper testing is done for MRSA before prescribing the anti-biotic. However, this is not so simply done.
The basic test that needs to be completed to detected MRSA and its current stage takes around 3 days to complete and can be costly. This reduces the chance of identifying the cause in order to best possibly cure the infection.
In recent studies however, the U.S. Food and Drug Association has approved a new test that can detect MRSA in less than an hour. This will hopefully provide doctors the opportunity to determine the best possible treatment thus enabling clinics to make real time decisions and save lives. This is certainly good news for both medical professionals as well as general public, who have been concerned about the rapid spread of this bacterium.
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