SARASOTA COUNTY -- In a few short weeks, a potentially deadly bacterial strain has touched three Sarasota County high schools, sending three students to the hospital for treatment.

School officials announced Thursday that the students -- at Riverview, Sarasota and Venice high schools -- had contracted antibiotic-resistant infections similar to the one that killed a student in Virginia this week.

All of the Sarasota County students got treatment quickly and none of the infections, caused by the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, became life threatening.

District and health department officials said they could not say for sure where the students had contracted the infections. Two of the students play on sports teams, which can increase the risk of infection because of close contact.

The district is advising parents not to panic, but to be aware of signs that could indicate a MRSA infection.

Two of the students have returned to classes. District officials were not sure about the third student's status.

The MRSA bacterium is spreading so quickly across the nation that health officials say it may kill more people than AIDS, according to an article published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Over the past year, it has shown up in schools across the state, including in Manatee and Charlotte counties.

The first sign of trouble in Sarasota emerged about a month ago, when the first student contracted the infection. School officials notified the parents of athletes, and asked them to take proper precautions.

Then, last week, staffers at Riverview sent 13 students with rashes to physicians for testing. One of those students turned out to have MRSA.

As each of the schools found out about the infections, maintenance workers thoroughly disinfected locker rooms, asking students to remove their belongings from lockers so staff could clean inside.

Superintendent Gary Norris said the school district did not immediately notify all parents of the infections because officials wanted to make sure that they had correct information and that principals had the knowledge they needed to field parents' calls.

"We're just now getting all the correct information," Norris said. "We wanted to make sure we had all the pieces together before we started notifying parents."

This week the district gave all principals information for parents on how to treat and prevent MRSA.

MRSA, pronounced mersa, causes skin infections that can appear in the form of abscesses and boils. The bacterium can be treated but not with the most common antibiotics.

MRSA is passed through close contact with an infected person, and often results from poor hygiene. The infection is most common in hospitals, but can also occur in other spaces where people have close contact, including locker rooms.

Athletes competing in contact sports such as football and wrestling have proven especially vulnerable to the spread of the infection.

Earlier this month, the Manatee school district announced that a Manatee High student had contracted a MRSA infection. Last year Charlotte County had a case at Lemon Bay High.

Neither the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Florida Health Department are tracking the number of school-reported MRSA cases. Most states, including Florida, do not require physicians to report MRSA infections.

But educators and health professionals agree that schools can be breeding grounds for the infection.

School officials in Charlotte, Manatee and Sarasota counties have tried to get ahead of the problem, taking steps geared toward prevention.

Last year Charlotte County school nurses worked with the county health department to create an informational video for parents. Athletic directors and principals trained in prevention strategies, and were asked to communicate the information to students.

"Hygiene has become an important part of our sports program, whereas it wasn't in the past," said Mike Riley, communications director in Charlotte.

"We need to be more cautious and alert."

Sarasota County reviewed its cleaning procedures after MRSA came up as the key topic at a summer conference for maintenance workers. Maintenance workers got extra training in disinfecting areas like locker rooms and showers, and district supervisors now conduct more inspections of these areas.

"We've been looking at the virus for the past couple of months and looking for ways we can proactively make sure we are poised to take care of the problem," said Jody Dumas, maintenance supervisor. 
 
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071019/NEWS/71019001

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