MRSA

I guess this is the right forum.  I have a question about the "superbug" MRSA.  This thing is huge right?  Are their new and good ideas for curing or preventing it.  I was told just to wash my hands regularly and wash out cuts with just regular ole bar soap.  I also though that if I cleaned everything with alcohol and got my elementary age family to wipe their desk off with alcohol pads that it would help prevent, but then my friend just told me that the alcohol will do the same thing to our bodies that the antibiotics have been doing.  She says we need germs and not to clean with alcohol because it is only gonna make us sicker.  I'm just trying to prevent this superbug staff.  Is the alcohol thing true, just like antibacterial soap?  How do we prevent this thing from spreading and treating it

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

MRSA refers to staphylococcal ("staph") germs that are resistant to many antibiotics.  These are not necessarily the aggressive infections that you read about (""flesh-eating bacteria"), which are more serious but much rarer.  I don't know where your friend got her imaginative ideas about cleaning being bad for you, but good hand-washing is probably the best thing you can do to keep infections of any kind away.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff

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