TUESDAY, Sept. 9 (HealthDay News) -- A national campaign to
teach parents how to protect kids from skin infections caused by
dangerous methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) bacteria was launched this week
by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MRSA, a type of staph bacteria that's resistant to certain
antibiotics, can cause severe infections in people in hospitals and
other health care facilities. It can also cause skin infections in
healthy people who haven't recently been hospitalized, the CDC
said.
Each year, Americans make more than 12 million visits to doctors
for skin infections typical of those caused by staph infections. In
some areas of the United States, MRSA accounts for more than half
of such skin infections.
The new National MRSA Education Initiative highlights specific
measures parents can take to protect themselves and their families
from MRSA skin infections. The campaign will include Web sites,
fact sheets, brochures, posters, radio and print public service
announcements, mom blogging sites, Web banners, and mainstream
media interviews. Information will also be shared through community
and school groups, professional organizations, faith-based groups,
and national health conferences.
MRSA is spread through direct contact with an infection, sharing
personal items such as towels or razors that have touched infected
skin, or by touching surfaces contaminated by MRSA.
Parents need to teach children about the signs and symptoms of
MRSA skin infections, which appear as a bump or infected area on
the skin that may be red, swollen, painful, warm to the touch, or
contain pus or other drainage. Fever may be another symptom.
The CDC said parents also need to help children keep their cuts
and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage and encourage children
to have good hand washing and general hygiene habits.
"Well-informed parents are a child's best defense against MRSA and other skin infections. Recognizing the signs and receiving treatment in the early stages of a skin infection reduces the chances of infection becoming severe or spreading," Dr. Rachel Gorwitz, a pediatrician and medical epidemiologist with CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, said in an agency news release.
More information
To learn more, visit the
CDC's Web
site.
