A new CDC report published online in Annals of Emergency Medicine (www.annemergmed .com, accessed July 7, 2008) found an unusually high number of community-acquired pneumonia cases caused by staph infection during the 2006-2007 flu season. Of 47 cases with known susceptibilities, 37 (79%) were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Twenty-four of the 47 patients died.
“Staph-caused pneumonia in the non-hospitalized population is rare to begin with, especially in otherwise healthy young people, but the amount caused by MRSA was particularly striking,” said lead study author Alexander J. Kallen, MD, of the CDC. “Many of the MRSA patients were not treated up front for MRSA, which suggests that doctors did not initially suspect this organism.”