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Oct 18, 2007 9:01 am US/Eastern
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New Staph Infection Cases At Wilde Lake High
by Dennis Edwards
MARYLAND (WJZ) ―
Four major steps are being taken in Howard County to prevent the spread of a potentially dangerous strain of staph that has one of the nation's highest infection rates in Baltimore City.
Dennis Edwards reports two staph infections have surfaced among students at Columbia's Wilde Lake High School. At this stage, the cases don't appear to be invasive MRSA, a type of staph infection that's penicillin resistant.
"It's only the relatively unusual case where the MRSA becomes systemic, gets into the blood stream and gets to the vital organs that it gets to be very dangerous. Those cases predominantly occur in hospitalized patients, the elderly, the sick," said Howard County Health Officer Dr. Peter Beilensen.
Even though Howard County health officials don't believe there's cause for alarm, they're not allowing students and teachers to come to school with an uncovered cut or break in their skin.
They're also encouraging hand washing, discouraging the sharing of towels and razors, and starting daily disinfection of common surfaces like library tables, desk tops and athletic facilities.
Students are already protecting themselves.
"A lot of students are taking precautions like wearing gloves and stuff, and they're like scared people who touch them will get it," said Wilde Lake senior Shaneeka Smith.
Dr. Beilensen told
Eyewitness News the two cases at Wilde Lake aren't connected to the more than 28 staph infections found recently in four Anne Arundel County schools.
Twenty additional cases surfaced since the initial outbreak, just before the MRSA related death of a Virginia teen and before a national study said MRSA infects 90,000 Americans each year. That's more than the number of AIDS related deaths two years ago.
That same study says Baltimore has the nation's highest MRSA infection rate.
Students at Wilde Lake are aware of the infections and worried about potential dangers involved with a bacteria that's found on 30 percent of the population.
"I think hygiene is an important way to do it. Everybody needs to wash and stuff, and if you get a cut and stuff, clean that immediately," said Wilde Lake senior Erika Hendershot.
While MRSA is penicillin resistant, doctors say there are other medications that are effective. The key is to get treatment as quickly as possible.
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