MRSA? Poverty? The analogy

The news on MRSA or Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus suddenly gets very hot on the net. Every one in US is talking about the superbug as if it's a new species or alien just discovered. It strikes me as something very ironic. Staphylococcus aureus is in fact a very common bacteria found on the skins and 70% of the populations should have the bacteria ALL THE TIME inside their nostrils!! The "amazing" mutant of Staphylococcus aureus, the superbug - MRSA, has actually been a common cause of death by hospital infection since early 1960s!!!

There is absolutely nothing new about MRSA. The so called community strain has actually been in publications since late 1990s! So, what's the big deal? Well, MRSA is known to strike bed-ridden people to death but not a normally healthy teenagers. Ironic huh? Only when the long feared bug is striking near us that we take a notice and scream out "HELP!!" and requesting all those sort of practices that scientists have been advocating to no avail for YEARS!

We, human being, need to learn to care about people and event in the world, not just the surrounding. It really saddens me to draw this parallel. An analogy of MRSA case can easily be drawn to the plight of the Ethiopia, Congo residents, North Korean poor citizens, and even the lepers. The attention that normal folks, not affected by poverty, on those people are near to zero. Have we human degraded so far to a level that unless the event is affecting us, then we'll do something about it? Shame on us, shame on us!

It's really the time for people to realize that there are many things happening on earth. Things as simple as the dangerous permanent residence of hospital - MRSA - should have been understood by even the common folks and in specific, those that are to be admitted to hospitals. After all, the sick need to know that not being careful in the ward can easily get the inflicted by a bug that has 40% chance of causing them death. Lots of cases are noted where patient A goes into hospital for X diseases and then later died because of Y infection worsened by MRSA. Yet, despite the danger, there is no public dissemination of such risk.

Should we really wait for danger to strike at home before we observe hygiene carefully? Should we wait until our country has 99% poor people before we realize that the poor need help and the hungry people need to be fed?