From nation wide research done by Rick Barr,MD and Edmund Yang,MD,it was found that between 1994 and 2005 123 children with MRSA went into respiratory failure and needed to be placed on life support, and an alarming 20 of those cases appeared in the last two years of the study. MRSA was found to be 10% more fatal than other illnesses requiring life support. Researchers founds that there is a peak of incidence for infants and then again at the ages of 14 and 15. Less than half of the children with MRSA who were put on life support survived. More research is going to be done but it is obvious that CA MRSA is more infectious and dangerous to healthy, young people and it will be a high priority to find out why and to stop this rate of respiratory failure and death.The rate of infections is still increasing and doctors are seeing too many young people dying.
I hope that this study will stop doctors like my own from saying that CA MRSA is seldom fatal and no one should panic about it. I have heard from many, myself included, that they would rather contract AIDS than CA MRSA, especially than CA VRSA, which is immune to all antibiotics already. There is still no cure for AIDS but at least it is a lot more simple to make sure that you don’t give it to those around you.
Another alarming factor with CA MRSA and children is the numbers of parents who won’t disclose that their children have CA MRSA so their children can go to school without being ostracized. I have read on different MRSA forum sites that the majority of parents would not tell the school if their child had MRSA. This is yet another factor that makes it difficult to avoid CA MRSA.
Our best defense is still thorough hand washing and the use of a hand lotion like The Invisible Armor, advertised on this page, that kills bacterium and keeps killing it for four hours after application. The best treatment for CA MRSA in this country is at The Wound Care Center in Lubbock, Texas. I will be posting more information about The Wound Care Clinic soon.