Saturday, May 24, 2008

MRSA and antibiotics

MRSA stands for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a super strain of bacteria, a mutated form of Staphylococcus aureus. Physicians and scientists (and the pharmaceutical company partly I think) hate MRSA very much because it can resist many antibiotics and hence its infection is very hard to treat. Originally, MRSA was feared by hospital goers simply because MRSA tends to lurk in the hospital. Well, in hospital, patients are generally with low immune response so it's easier for the bacteria to survive. After all, if you have such a powerful weaponry in your gene, the weaponry makes it difficult for the bacteria to survive on people with normal immune response. You see, it's a give and take situation.
However, lately a new strain of MRSA emerges with better ability to infect the healthy. Hence, more danger for us.

One important thing that lay person needs to understand is that MRSA or other super bug emerges mainly due to abuse, misuse, and overuse of antibiotics. We simply have select for super strain due to our stupidity.
What I find more puzzling is the fact that some people are touting a new compound or are searching new compound (read: antibiotics) to fight MRSA as if MRSA will never develop resistance to the compound. What kind of naivity is that? MRSA itself develops after being selected by antibiotics for so long there will be a compound which it can't develop resistance for? Even after MRSA collect so many types of antibiotics from A to Z??
What the....

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