• Question: Can you get rid of RMSA

    Asked by masoodargiebargie to Callum, Gina, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 10 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by kaisyboy.
    • Photo: Sam Godfrey

      Sam Godfrey answered on 10 Nov 2012:

      MRSA can definitely be gotten rid of. If you are healthy, your body should be able to fight it off with its white blood cells.
      MRSA is a normal bacteria that has mutated to be immune to antibiotics. This isn’t a problem for healthy people but if you are older or have a weakened immune system then when the bacteria infects you, your body can’t fight it off. With most bacterial infections you can beat it with antibiotics, but with MRSA the usual antibiotics don’t work. There are still antibiotics that can beat it, but they are a bit poisonous and can make you ill. Because of this problem, lots of scientists are trying to invent new antibiotics to help us win this fight.

      Hope this helps

      Sam

    • Photo: Michelle Linterman

      Michelle Linterman answered on 11 Nov 2012:

      Good question, we hear a lot about MRSA, and how much of a problem it is, in the news. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of bacteria that can’t be killed by a number of bacteria-killing drugs (antibiotics), including one you may have had yourself at some point, called penicillin. MRSA can be cured with an antibiotic called Vancomycin, that comes in a pill you can swallow or can be injected into the body. New drugs are being made and tested all the time, just in case MRSA can become resistant to Vancomycin as well, which some scientists think has happened to some, but not most, MRSA already.

    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 11 Nov 2012:

      MRSA is a bacteria which has become resistant to the antibiotics normally used to treat it, so doctors have to give you stronger antibiotics or antibiotics which it hasn’t become resistant to yet. My aunty had MRSA when she was in hospital (she is quite old and older people are more likely to get it as they have a weakened immune system) but she got better after having lots of strong antibiotics.

    • Photo: Callum Johnston

      Callum Johnston answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      Good answers from everyone else. The only thing I’d add is that antibiotics are given out by doctors very regularly and they don’t always help fight the illness you have, like a cold. So by exposing all the bacteria in our body to antibiotics there will be some that manage to survive the drug and these ones can replicate so that next time you take antibiotics the bacteria don’t die. That’s how MRSA became rife in hospitals!

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