The drug resistant staph infection known as MRSA has popped up around San Diego recently. From a wrestling coach in Fallbrook, to a teenager in Encinitas, to an elephant at the Wild Animal Park. Now local school districts and children’s clubs are turning their attention to stopping MRSA.
“The public isn’t aware yet, that this is an epidemic,” says Dr. William O’Riordan, who researches MRSA in San Diego, “[but] this is truly an epidemic.”
Over the last two decades, Dr. O’Riordan has seen the number of skin infections with MRSA skyrocket from two percent to 78 percent.
“The organizations like the Boys and Girls clubs, and the YMCA, and YWCA, are going to have to do something.”
“[That] may include an independent survey of our practices and the use of new products," said Boys and Girls Club spokesman Jonathan Greene.
The Boys and Girls Club, as well as local high schools are looking to surface cleaners from companies like San Diego based “Pure Green 24” as another way to prevent MRSA.
“The lady I met told me, ‘I lost my nephew two years ago to MRSA,’ recalls Pure Green 24 distributor Ed Lucero. “What do you say to that?”
Lucero thinks of the product as an alternative to bleach and chemical cleaners that would normally be used to kill bacteria in places like gyms or high schools.
“A lot of things are toxic, a lot of things can’t be applied around people,” Lucero adds.
But for treatment on the skin, Doctor William O’Riordan says the prescription-only soap and cleanser Phisohex is one of the only products known to kill MRSA.
“If you have an abrasion yourself, and you want to make sure the abrasion doesn't get infected, then that's the time I would use the Phisohex,” says O’Riordian.
He also recommends simple hand hygiene. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and water, and keeping the fingernails short. He predicts student athletes will eventually be prohibited from having long fingernails. “Because it's usually the scratch, which is the culprit in really spreading this really, really vicious bacteria.”
