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via News in Health For nearly a century, bacteria-fighting drugs known as antibiotics have helped to control and destroy many of the harmful bacteria that can make us sick. But in recent decades, antibiotics have been losing their punch against some types of bacteria. In fact, certain bacteria are now unbeatable with today’s medicines. Sadly, the way we’ve been using antibiotics is helping to create new drug-resistant “superbugs.” Superbugs are strains of bacteria that are resistant to several types of antibiotics. Each year these drug-resistant bacteria infect more than 2 million people nationwide and kill at least 23,000, according to...

via Allegheny County Health Department What is Community Associated Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CAMRSA)? CA-MRSA is caused by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. Infection with MRSA means that some antibiotics will not work against these bacteria. Many people carry Staphylococcal organisms in their nasal cavity, but do not have an active infection. Those people are called “carriers”. Most people who get an infection with CA-MRSA often think they have a spider bite because of a reddened area on the skin that may drain pus or form an abscess. How do athletes get CA-MRSA? Athletes can contract CA-MRSA by close skin to...

What is ringworm? Ringworm (also called serpigo) is an infection of the skin, characterized by a reddish to brownish raised or bumpy patch of skin that may be lighter in the center, giving the appearance of a “ring.” It can exist anywhere on the body. Depending on its location, it is also known as tinea pedis or “athlete’s foot” when on the feet, tinea cruris or “jock itch” when on the groin area, tinea corporis when on the body, where it is most commonly referred to as ringworm, or tinea capitis when on the scalp.] Contrary to its name, ringworm...

by Ed Susman Contributing Writer, MedPage Today PHILADELPHIA — Contact sports participants — particularly football players — are more than twice as likely as other athletes to be colonized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), researchers reported here. Contact sports athletes had higher odds of being colonized with MRSA [OR 2.36; 95% CI 1.13-4.93] than athletes playing noncontact sports, said Natalia Jimenez-Truque, PhD, a research instructor at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program, Nashville. At an IDWeek press conference Jimenez said that contact sports players — defined for the study as varsity athletes engaged in football, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer — tended...

College athletes who play contact sports are more likely to be colonized by Staph bugs than others. By Shweta Iyer Traditionally, it was believed that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) was found among people with weak immune systems living in health care environments. But the MRSA superbug is now also showing up in healthy people who have not been hospitalized, and most vulnerable among these are contact sport athletes. According to a new study being presented at IDWeek (a forum for health professionals), college athletes who play football, soccer, and other contact sports are more prone to being infected and also spread...