Staphylococcus Aureus Bacteria

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. \o7Staphylococcus aureus \f7bacteria -- 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.

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.

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.

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.

Many Americans need look no further than their own noses to find the new bug among us. Even as area hospitals and doctors report an increase in the number of people showing up with telltale signs of a drug-resistant form of the bacterium S\o7taphylococcus aureus\f7\o7, \f7a new study has found that the strain is finding a cozy home in the nostrils of about 2 million Americans. The study, published in the Jan.

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.