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Community and Hospital-Associated MRSA
CA-MRSA partially replacing HA-MRSA and invading hospitals
BACKGROUND
Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) outbreaks have been a growing public health concern since the 1960s, and in the late 2000s, MRSA mortality rates in the United States exceeded the combined death toll of AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B. Historically, MRSA was hospital acquired (HA-MRSA), but as demonstrated in this visualization, the incidence of community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) infections has been growing rapidly since 2000.
The two types of infections exhibit significant genotypical, epidemiological, and clinical differences. CA-MRSA causes mostly nonlife-threatening skin infections and is easier to treat than the hospital strain. However, the striking growth in CA-MRSA infections has implications for hospital epidemiologists – outpatients could be a major factor in the spread of MRSA in facilities, and there is already evidence of the invasion of community strains in inpatient wards.
RESISTANCE BY U.S. CENSUS DIVISION, 1999-2010
