Officials try to calm MRSA fears

(10/23/07 -- GARNER) (WTVD) -- School leaders across the Triangle are trying to calm fears about MRSA the drug-resistant staph infection that recently killed a Virginia student.

One Wake County principal is taking matters into his own hands after one of his students was hospitalized.

It turns out that North Garner Middle School student has another type of skin infection, not a staph infection. Still with much talk about MRSA, the principal is sending home letters and calling parents, making sure they're informed and not alarmed.

The boy's parents told Eyewitness news that their son scratched open a cut while working in his yard Saturday. Then he played baseball on the North Garner Middle School field Sunday. By that night, his legs were swollen with blisters, so they took him to WakeMed.

The child's parents say doctors originally treated their son for MRSA, not the hospital says the child does not have MRSA. He has another type of skin infection.

The director of Wake County Community Health says she's not surprised by the doctors' first response.

"These days with the growing number of MRSA cases being reported, many hospitals and doctors offices are assuming that a skin infection or abscess is MRSA and are treating it that way," Director Gibbie Harris says.

Harris says MRSA needs to be treated quickly, especially since some forms are resistant to the most common antibiotics used to treat the infection, and it can be deadly.

She adds parents shouldn't panic.

"The reality is that we carry bacteria on our skin all the time," Harris says. "Different people carry different bacteria but there are people in the community who are perfectly healthy who have MRSA on their skin, in their noses. It's just that they're carriers. The only time people become infected is when they have a reduced immune system or an open cut on their skin."

Harris says cuts should be cleaned with soap and water then covered with a band-aid. Students shouldn't share clothes or towels. And everyone should wash their hand thoroughly and often.

It's advice parents are taking home.

North garner's principal is also leaving an automated message at every students' home to make sure parents get the information. Jordan High School's principal did the same thing in Durham. And just Monday at Wakefield High School, the principal sent home letters after a student being treated as if she has MRSA returned to school.

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