Alarming rates of flesh eating MRSA bug in the United States

• US doctors warn of small but alarming rates of a flesh-eating type of superbug.
• Patients appear to have caught the MRSA infection that attacks the skin outside of hospital, reports the New England Journal of Medicine.
• At a centre in California, 14 patients were identified between 2003 and 2004, and some needed to be hospitalised.
• The infections in the US community have typically manifested as skin infections, such as pimples and boils, in otherwise healthy people.
• The disease is different to MRSA infections seen in the UK, which occur most frequently among people in hospitals who have weakened immune systems.
• The CDC has been investigating clusters of the community-acquired MRSA skin infections among athletes, military recruits and prisoners.
• A common theme associated with the spread of these MRSA skin infections appears to be close skin-to-skin contact, openings in the skin such as cuts or abrasions, contaminated items and surfaces, crowded living conditions and poor hygiene.
• The CDC is investigating why this strain is particularly good at spreading.
• The study authors, from the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "We have recently noted an alarming number of these infections caused by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)."
• They recommended that in areas in which the infection is endemic, suspected cases should be promptly treated with antibiotics.
• Angela Kearns, head of the Health Protection Agency's staphylococcus reference laboratory, said: "Over the past three years the Agency has seen only a small number of community-acquired MRSA cases, and the UK hasn't seen the levels of true community MRSA that have been seen in the States.
• "Consequently, the risk of contracting this type of MRSA in the UK remains extremely small."
• Dr Jodi Lindsay, lecturer in infectious diseases at St George's hospital, said although no cases had been reported in the UK yet, it was a concern.