The MRSA infection rates in hospitals are improving!   However, nature has also provided an effective treatment plan for MRSA!  We will present some natural alternatives below but, first, some updated information concerning hospitals:

Signs of Improvement

   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 serious skin infections in healthy people who haven't recently been hospitalized.  The tough-to-treat blood infections have caused the most concern, but the new CDC numbers suggest that MRSA hospital prevention efforts may be turning the tide against MRSA.

   "The risk of bloodstream infections caused by MRSA that are associated with the use of central line catheters has dramatically declined by 50 to 70 percent since 2001, in all types of adult ICUs," said lead researcher Dr. Deron C. Burton, associate director of CDC's Health Equity National Center for Health Marketing.

   A central line is a catheter inserted into a large blood vessel. The tip of the catheter is typically close to the heart or in the aorta or jugular vein.  The drop in these infections is largely due to better procedures that have improved the safety of catheters, Burton said. "There has been improvement in the sterility of how they are inserted and how they are cared for while they are in the patient," he explained.

   The report is published in the Feb. 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.  For the study, Burton's group collected data from hospitals reporting on MRSA hospital infections to the CDC. Specifically, the researchers looked at ICU-based MRSA infections associated with central line catheters from 1997 to 2007.  During that period, 1,684 ICUs reported almost 33,600 central line bloodstream infections. Of these, 7.4 percent were MRSA and 4.7 percent were methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), meaning the infection could be treated with the antibiotic.

   Although the percent of infections attributed to MRSA increased by nearly 26 percent over the period, the actual number of MRSA infections dropped by close to 50 percent, the researchers noted. This overall drop took place after 2001 and continued through 2007, the researchers found.  The decline in MRSA infections was seen in all types of ICUs. For example, infections dropped 51.5 percent in medical-surgical ICUs and by more than 69 percent in surgical ICUs. The number of MRSA infections in pediatric ICUs remained stable, although MRSA hospital infections in these ICUs was already low to begin with, the researchers noted.

Preventative Measures

   Infections from MRSA were not the only ones to decline, Burton said. "We looked at bloodstream infections being caused by any pathogen, not just MRSA. When we looked at all causes of these central line bloodstream infections lumped together, we saw declines of roughly 40 to 50 percent in the risk of these infections," he said.  "Hospitals should be encouraged by these results," Burton said. "Their efforts should be continued and expanded."  The findings are also great news for patients, Burton added. "Central lines have become safer in recent years, at least with the risk of causing bloodstream infections," he said.

   Dr. Pascal James Imperato, dean and distinguished service professor of the graduate program in public health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York City, said he was heartened by the findings.  "MRSA central line-associated bloodstream infections were once common," he noted. "The present study is of great significance because of its size and decade-long comparisons. The dramatic declines in bloodstream infections due to MRSA, and associated with central lines in adult patients in intensive care units, reflect the implementation over the past several years of a variety of very effective preventive barrier techniques."

   Important among these improvements are changes in central line insertion techniques and the maintenance of such lines. The implementation of techniques in hospitals to prevent the transmission of MRSA hospital infections between patients has also been invaluable, Imperato added.  "The results of this study demonstrate that when appropriate prevention techniques are scrupulously implemented in the health-care setting, the incidence of MRSA and other forms of infection can be dramatically reduced," he said. "Such preventive measures, now being more aggressively applied in most health-care settings should, hopefully, greatly reduce the incidence of all forms of MRSA infections."

A Better Way!

   We appreciate the efforts of hospitals in doing a better job of sterilizing what they insert into the body during procedures.  However, we prefer not to have to be there in the first place - and we would definately prefer not to have to go there as a result of MRSA. 

   As we promised above, there are additional possibilities available.  As happy as we are of hospital improvements, we are also learning to let nature work for us!  Nature has to defend itself against the same bacteria as we do and it has developed some wonderful defenses. 

   If you are interested, we have much more information on nature’s essential oils and monolaurin on our main articles on the site.  There, we offer our complete natural treatment system for MRSA.  This provides a tremendous back-up system to the difficulties antibiotics are having.  Our Ultimate Staph Treatment System. involves:

1. An external treatment for mercer skin conditions.
2. An internal direct mercer bacterial treatment and immune system strengthener.
3. A household environment mercer protection.    
 

   If you, or some you love, have MRSA symptoms, we invite you take a closer look in our website at: The 5-Step MRSA Treatment Plan.