Staphylococcus Aureus Bacteria

Gold-colored strains of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria tend to cause more disease than colorless strains because they carry antioxidants to protect themselves against immune system attack, researchers reported Monday in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Victor Nizet of UC San Diego and colleagues found that the antioxidant compounds, called carotenoids, help defend the colored bacteria from toxic molecules made by immune system cells called neutrophils.

An outbreak of antibiotic-resistant skin infections at the San Diego Zoo last year began when a zookeeper infected an elephant calf that was being hand-raised because its mother couldn't care for it, according to a zoo and county health department investigation. The calf, in turn, infected as many as 20 of its human caretakers.

A virulent skin disease that resists common treatments continues to spread in the Los Angeles County jails, with about 200 inmates becoming infected each month, authorities said Tuesday. "There is a significant level of infection in the jail," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the county public health agency. But he also said the number of new infections, caused by a strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria resistant to many antibiotics, has tapered off at the jails in recent months.

A Downey High School wrestler has died after being hospitalized for 20 days with pneumonia and other complications of a staph infection. Noah Armendariz, 17, died Sunday at Children's Hospital of Orange County, said his mother, Cynthia Magana. The infection was caused by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, or MSSA, Magana said. Another form of S.

It's a paradox of modern medicine: High-tech marvels such as heart surgery and kidney transplants are helping people live longer, but they're also providing new targets for a dangerous type of bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus causes about half a million infections -- sometimes referred to as staph infections -- a year. The infections often occur in people who have had surgery to insert heart valves and stents, catheters, even artificial hip joints. And because S.

It all began with what looked like a spider bite on Eileen Moore's left thigh. Nothing to worry about, she figured. Within 24 hours, the "bite" became a 6-inch welt with a bubble of pus that eventually ripened into a black wound. Over the next few months, scabs dotted her face. A hangnail caused her middle finger to bloat like a sausage. Her pierced ears oozed pus.

An outbreak of antibiotic-resistant skin infections at the San Diego Zoo last year began when a zookeeper infected an elephant calf that was being hand-raised because its mother couldn't care for it, according to a zoo and county health department investigation. The calf, in turn, infected as many as 20 of its human caretakers.

A Downey High School wrestler has died after being hospitalized for 20 days with pneumonia and other complications of a staph infection. Noah Armendariz, 17, died Sunday at Children's Hospital of Orange County, said his mother, Cynthia Magana. The infection was caused by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, or MSSA, Magana said. Another form of S.

California would have one of the most sweeping laws in the nation for tracking "superbugs" in hospitals and other settings under legislation that state Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) plans to introduce this month. This time, the hospital lobbyists who persuaded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a similar bill in 2004 will be up against a highly visible advocate.

New York scientists have reported the fourth instance of a hospitalized patient developing an infection with a strain of Staphylococcus aureus resistant to vancomycin--the antibiotic of last resort for bacteria that have developed resistance to all others. Vancomycin-resistant strains of bacteria could produce deadly epidemics if they escaped from the confines of a hospital.

Responding to concerns about antibiotic-resistant "superbug" staph infections, California will now require local health departments to report all severe infections originating outside healthcare facilities, but not cases contracted in hospitals or nursing homes.

As the public's alarm mounts over methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a few hospitals in California and across the country are finding that aggressive action to detect and avert infections pays off.

California would have one of the most sweeping laws in the nation for tracking "superbugs" in hospitals and other settings under legislation that state Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) plans to introduce this month. This time, the hospital lobbyists who persuaded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a similar bill in 2004 will be up against a highly visible advocate.

Hospitalizations associated with a drug-resistant form of a Staphylococcus bacterium doubled over six years in the United States to nearly 280,000 cases in 2005, according to a new study published Thursday that provides a wider picture of the bug's impact.

State health and education officials are preaching calm -- and cleanliness -- to discourage panic over an antibiotic-resistant "superbug" that has become a focus of fear nationwide after being implicated in the deaths of students in New York and Virginia. "There is absolutely no panic, nor should there be," said State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, responding to a string of cases of methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aureus, or MRSA, in Sacramento and East Bay-area schools.

The number of severe infections by a "superbug," known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is at least twice as high as researchers previously believed, and the bacterium now kills more Americans than AIDS, researchers reported today.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first in a new class of antibiotics capable of fighting several different strains of drug-resistant bacteria, including a common infection called Staphylococcus aureus that public health officials regard as an increasingly worrisome bug. Zyvox, made by Pharmacia & Upjohn of Kalamazoo, Mich., is the second new antibiotic in recent months to be licensed by the FDA.

Federal health officials said the deaths of four previously healthy children from a drug-resistant bacteria is not cause for panic, but they stress that doctors need to be aware that the bacteria has spread. "They need to be able to take this into account when they're making decisions about how to test for infections and how to treat them," said Dr. Timothy Naimi, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One-quarter of all humans carry staph bacteria, but drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections were largely thought to be confined to hospitals and nursing homes.

A nasty staph germ circulating in the community and some hospitals produces a poison that can kill pneumonia patients within 72 hours, researchers have reported. Staphylococcus aureus bacteria -- staph for short -- can pass one another the gene for the toxin and are apparently swapping it more often, the researchers reported in the Jan. 19 issue of the journal Science. The toxin, called Panton Valentine leukocidin, or PVL, can itself cause pneumonia and can kill healthy tissue.

Deadly drug-resistant staph infections -- rarely seen in patients a decade ago -- have become the leading type of skin infections treated in emergency rooms, scientists reported Wednesday. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine was the first to demonstrate the extent to which drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has spread throughout the U.S. The bacterium accounted for 59% of skin infections in the study, researchers said, with ranges of 15% in New York City to 74% in Kansas City, Mo.