“Hospitals Can be a Risk to Your Health”
MRSA (a methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) is a type of bacterial infection that is resistant to a number of widely-used antibiotics and it first came on the scene more than 50 years ago. Edinburgh University scientists tracked MRSA’s movements, using its genetic code as a tag, and found, “Hospitals in large cities are the breeding grounds of the superbug MRSA, which then spreads to other hospitals as patients are transferred or treated in regional hospitals.” Investigators found that the infection started its journey in large city center hospitals, in London and Glasgow, and then spread to smaller local hospitals. This is the first time investigators have had genetic evidence for MRSA spread, which may help them identify the transmission routes and take steps to prevent its spread. Their work was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
