by Ashleigh Sanchez
Daily Lobo
The October death of a student in Brooklyn, N.Y., raised concern that his killer, a mutated form of a common bacterium, could appear at schools around the country.
The Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, known as the staph infection, has the potential to cause a varying degree of illness from skin infections to death, said Beverly Kloeppel, director of the UNM Student Health Center.
But years of heavy use of antibiotics, such as penicillin, caused the bacteria to mutate and become resistant to the drugs used to combat it, she said.
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The mutation produced methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, Kloeppel said.
"Our tendency to overuse antibiotics caused this," she said. "But infectious diseases develop resistance, and new antibiotics are always in development. The question is, can that development stay ahead of mutation?"
Dean of Students Randy Boeglin said UNM hasn't taken any precautionary measures, but there will be a presentation to educate department heads about MRSA.
"We have a threshold of concern and have decided to prepare and educate ourselves," he said.
The presentation will be at 4 p.m. on Nov. 20 in the Dean of Students conference room in Mesa Vista Hall.
Boeglin said the recent death and media attention have prompted UNM to expand education, first to leaders and then to students.
"We're certainly not barring students from the presentation," he said. "The purpose is to bring the heads up to speed."
Although the disease can be serious, the rate of death from infection is low in healthy populations, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study found the mortality rate for people infected with MRSA is one in 200,000.
The MRSA bacterium occurs mainly in hospital settings, Kloeppel said.
She said most people are infected in hospitals, but people are catching it outside of hospitals at increasing rates.
"The rate of community-acquired MRSA infections is growing," she said. "And community-acquired MRSA has characteristics that make it very virulent."
She said 3 percent of hospital workers carry MRSA.
About 85 percent of MRSA infections happen during or within a year of a hospital visit, the study found.
Kloeppel said the study shows how the infection is no longer just a hospital concern.
The infection is transmitted through direct contact with an infected person, Kloeppel said.
She said breaks in the skin can make a person vulnerable to infection.
Common areas of transmission are dormitories, locker rooms, gyms and places where many people share objects like towels or equipment.
Avoiding sharing personal items like razors and towels can also prevent transmission.
Kloeppel said there are drugs - glycol peptides - that are effective against the infection.
It is resistant to the class of drugs called beta-lactam, which include antibiotics like penicillin or amoxicillin.
She said symptoms of infection include skin lesions or boils, especially in community-acquired MRSA.
"It looks like a boil or spider bite," she said. "There are particular strains that can be very aggressive, causing systemic infections or fatal skin infections, but it's rare."
Kloeppel said washing hands and covering open wounds can usually prevent the spread of MRSA.
Hand washing is the best practice to combat the spread of MRSA, said Pam Iwamoto, director of safety and epidemiology at UNM Hospital.
"Sometimes you go into a bathroom, and if there is no soap, no paper towels, people don't wash," she said. "People aren't as conscientious, and it is part of why we see community-acquired MRSA increasing."
Iwamoto said MRSA is just the start of the problem.
"We need to apply what we're learning from MRSA to other pathogens," she said. "There are several up-and-coming drug-resistant bacteria."
