MRSA outbreaks ‘occur in the community’

OUTBREAKS of MRSA are occurring outside hospital wards and in the community, the chief scientist monitoring the deadly bug warned yesterday.

Small numbers of patients have visited their GPs with the condition and are immediately referred to hospitals, Dr Angela Rossney said yesterday. It remainsunclear exactly how many community MRSA cases are occurring.

The chief medical scientist with the National MRSA Reference Laboratory based in St James’s Hospital said: “There is something, in terms of numbers it’s much smaller, and that is the emergence of MRSA in the community.”