MRSA

If you haven't heard about the dangerous superbug called MRSA, you will soon.

We are seeing more and more children getting hospitalized with infections from this tough to treat "superbug".

As a matter of fact, over the last 10 years, the number of children getting hospitalized with this dangerous drug resistant staph infection has gone up 10 fold. Back in 1999, when the study was started two out of every 1,000 hospitalizations had this type of infection. By 2008, that number had jumped to 21 cases for every 1,000 hospitalized children.

Researchers looked at 25 different Children's hospitals and found in the 10 year time period, almost 30,000 children were hospitalized with MRSA, or methicillin resistant staph aureus, infections, and 374 of them died.

Part of the reason this is happening is because this type of bacteria is becoming more resistant to antibiotics and is now spreading outside of hospitals. It often begins as a pimple or boil on the skin and can look like a spider bite. But it quickly spreads and can cause a person to get sicker even with normal antibiotics. There are some antibiotics that will still work against this superbug but they aren't usually used in routine infections so, often aren't the firsts ones prescribed. So, you best bet is to follow up with your doctor if you notice a skin infection worsening, even if you are on antibiotics.