MRSA Symptoms & Treatment

MRSA is a flesh eating bacteria, affecting mostly the skin. It causes rashes, abscesses, deep tissue infections, and can even lead to cellulitis or fatal pneumonia. It's normally contracted through cuts, blisters, burns, insect bites, surgical wounds, or cracks in the skin. Long-lasting infections from minor cuts or burns can indicate the presence of MRSA, or rapid infection growth. If cellulitis is contracted, symptoms can include fever, headache, nausea, and early signs of redness on the skin. It's also characterized by swelling, warmth, and pain or tenderness. The most common form of treatment is incision and drainage of the abscesses. However, now there's another version of MRSA called "VISA" ( vancomycin intermediate-resistant staphylococcus aureus), which is a strain that is resistant even to vancomycin. Therefore, preventative sanitation is the best option for avoiding infection.

Both HA-MRSA and CA-MRSA are resistant to most antibiotics, but can be treated with drugs such as tetracycline, clindamycin, oxazolidinone, vancomycin, teicoplanin, quinupristin/dalfopristin, daptomycin, rifampicin+fluoroquinolone, pristinamycin, co-trimoxazole, doxycycline or minocycline, clindamycin, and tigecycline.