• Question: what is MRSA?

    Asked by mahid to Jack, Jon, Tom, Yalda on 8 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 8 Mar 2013:

      Ohhh good question! MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococus aureus. Methicillin is a kind of antibiotic & S. aureus is a bacteria – so when a S. aureus becomes resistant, it means methicillin can’t kill it anymore.

      There are some drugs out there that can still kill S. aureus but physicians try and save these for the very worst cases so as not to promote more resistance.

    • Photo: Tom Branson

      Tom Branson answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      MRSA is the most famous “superbug”. Don’t let the name fool you though, it is not a good thing! As Claire said it is resistant to some antibiotics including penicillin, which makes it difficult to treat. The infection gives you a fever and red spots which then develop into big boils full of puss, pretty gross. It is also most common in hospitals where there are a lot of people in a small space already a bit ill, this makes it very dangerous

      Medicinal chemists are constantly trying to find new antibiotics to fight diseases like MRSA. It is a big issue at the moment because if all bacteria evolve to be resistent then we will have no way of fighting them.

    • Photo: Jon Marles-Wright

      Jon Marles-Wright answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      MRSA is a strain of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, that is resistant to the antibiotic Methillicin. This antibiotic is related to penicillin and in fact MRSA bugs are resistant to all penicillin family antibiotics.

      Staphylococcus aureus has a protein on its surface that makes a wall of protein and sugar around the cell. The cell wall protects bacteria from their environment and stops them popping. The penicillin antibiotics stick to this protein and stop it working and without a cell wall bacteria die. The resistant bacteria have altered this protein so that it no longer binds methicillin.

    • Photo: Yalda Javadi

      Yalda Javadi answered on 14 Mar 2013:

      MRSA is trouble.

      Imagine Staphylococus aureus’ more stubborn and deadly sibling.

      It stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococus aureus…although sometimes it’s been referred to as multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It’s developed resistance to antibiotics, which makes it very nasty and dangerous.

    • Photo: Jack Heal

      Jack Heal answered on 17 Mar 2013:

      A bacterion which makes people ill and is very difficult to kill with antibiotics

Comments