How is MRSA treated if it is resistant to antibiotics?
So far, MRSA is not resistant to all antibiotics. Vancomycin is one treatment. If your doctor prescribes an antibiotic, take the whole prescription — stopping too soon can cause bacteria to become resistant to that antibiotic. What is the new resistant staph being reported in gay communities? It’s a variant of the MRSA that’s spreading nationally. It’s resistant to more antibiotics than regular MRSA — not just penicillin-type drugs like methicillin but also clindamycin, erythromycin and mupirocin. The new strain is called multiply drug-resistant MRSA (MDR-MRSA). The strain has caused serious infections in hundreds of people so far, mostly in the gay communities of San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and New York. Doctors say these infections are more fast-moving, so any delay in recognizing them and treating them with the right antibiotic can cause life-threatening infections. Researchers think many of the infections so far have been transmitted during sexual activity. But MDR-MRSA is s
