# 4221
In the past year, I’ve known 3 people who have contracted a resistant bacterial infection. Two of the three eventually recovered, but the third person (who had comorbidities) died.
Maryn McKenna, who writes for CIDRAP and pens the always excellent Superbug Blog, has recently completed her book on MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), and it will be published in late March.
I ordered my pre-publication copy today as an early birthday present, and expect to have it in my hot little hands the first week of April.
You can order it here (hint . . hint):
Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA (Hardcover)
~ Maryn McKenna
The bad thing about Maryn’s blog is, once you visit, you may not leave for hours. It is a tremendous resource.
Yesterday Maryn wrote a piece for CIDRAP News on ST398, a MRSA Clone that has been increasingly found in farm animals.
MRSA clone in food animals worrisome, expert says
Maryn McKenna
Contributing Writer
Jan 4, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – The emergence and wide spread of a new clone of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in food animals is a worrisome development that should be watched closely, one of the strain's lead researchers has warned in a medical journal.
Writing in Clinical Microbiology and Infection, Dr. Jan Kluytmans of Amphia Hospital in Breda, the Netherlands, recounts the identification of MRSA multilocus sequence type 398 (or ST398).
The new strain, which was first noted in French livestock in 2005, is widely distributed. It was successively found in the Netherlands in pigs, in agricultural workers and their families, and in unrelated healthcare workers and hospital patients—and then in a variety of livestock species, and in retail meat, in Europe, Canada, and the United States.
Maryn also covers this story in her blog post yesterday.
Warning on ST398: Monitor this now
A search of Maryn’s blog will turn up numerous other reports on this MRSA Clone over the past year or so.
