Serious skin infections that resist antibiotics are hospitalizing more and more children.
A new federal report found that 71,900 children spent time in the hospital in 2009 for serious skin infections. That reflected a rate of 9.4 cases for every 10,000 children, up sharply from a rate of 4.5 cases per 10,000 in 2000.
The analysis, by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, largely blamed the increase on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections, better known as MRSA. Time reports that most MRSA infections still occur in health-care settings such as hospitals and nursing homes, but an increasing number are being spread elsewhere, often in gym locker rooms.
As Dr. Patrick S. Romano, a medical school professor at the University of California, Davis, told The New York Times: “People think of MRSA as a hospital bug, but it’s not just a hospital bug anymore. It’s a community bug.” For children, Romano said, MRSA has become “the dominant cause of soft tissue infection requiring emergency department care and inpatient care.”
Although most cases of MRSA can be treated outside of a hospital, the infections sometimes are deadly. A 2007 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly 19,000 people had died in the United States in 2005 from an invasive form of MRSA infection.
Infections caused by MRSA often resemble a pimple, boil or spider bite but quickly worsen into an abscess or pus-filled blister or sore. “If your child develops a painful boil, especially on the buttocks, don’t wait for it to go away by itself or try to drain it at home,” Romano said.
The rise in serious MRSA infections could be related to the overuse of antibiotics. As Reuters reported recently, a study of children in the United Kingdom found that youngsters who received lots of antibiotics were more prone to harbor the antibiotic-resistant MRSA.
What’s more, doctors’ treatments for MRSA sometimes are off-target. Another recent study, led by Vanderbilt University researchers and published in the journal Pediatrics, found that many doctors could be using ineffective drugs to treat children with MRSA.
The study found that the widespread use of drugs such as Bactrim and Septra, which combine trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazol, or beta-lactam medications to counter MRSA boils in children across Tennessee “was associated with increased risks of treatment failure and recurrence.” The study said clindamycin was more effective.
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