Staph Infection

Staph skin infections, including MRSA, generally start as swollen, painful red bumps that might look like pimples or spider bites. The affected area might be:

• Warm to the touch
• Full of pus or other drainage
• Accompanied by a fever

These red bumps can quickly turn into deep, painful boils (abscesses) that require surgical draining. Sometimes the bacteria remain confined to the skin. But they can also burrow deep into the body, causing potentially life-threatening infections in bones, joints, surgical wounds, the bloodstream, heart valves and lungs. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is caused by a type of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to many of the antibiotics used to treat ordinary staph infections.

Most MRSA infections occur in people who’ve been in hospitals or other health care settings, such as nursing homes and dialysis centers. When it occurs in these settings, it’s known as health care-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA). HA-MRSA infections usually are associated with invasive procedures or devices, such as surgeries, intravenous tubing or artificial joints. HA-MRSA can spread by health care workers touching people with unclean hands or people touching unclean surfaces.