MRSA resisting antibiotics

AN antibiotic used to eradicate MRSA in patients whose nasal passages are colonised by the superbug is in danger of becoming ineffective because of inappropriate usage.

A study by Dr Brian O’Connell, director of the National MRSA Reference Laboratory, and consultant microbiologist at St James’s Hospital, and Dr Angela Rossney, chief medical scientist, has recorded an emerging high-level resistance to the antibiotic mupirocin in a rising number of MRSA isolates examined in the lab.

Dr O’Connell said mupirocin was “an agent quite useful to eradicate MRSA carriage”.