The fifth confirmed case of the antibiotic-resistant strain of staphylococcus in Howard County public schools is no indication of an outbreak, health and school officials said.
“It would be looked into as an outbreak when there are three cases in a three-week period and they?re shown to be related,” Howard Health Department spokesman Lisa de Hernandez said.
The state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene gave county health departments these new recommendations this month on how to classify confirmed cases of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.
“It?s been around a while,” said Karen Black, director of the department?s public relations.
“But for some reason, it?s percolated to the public attention.”
The state does not require MRSA cases to be reported by doctors to health departments or schools, she said.
The newest MRSA case was confirmed Monday at Glenwood Middle School, school system spokeswoman Patti Caplan said.
Staph is a type of bacteria that causes skin infections that look like pimples or boils.
Other confirmed cases were at Wilde Lake High School and Harper?s Choice Middle School in Columbia and Marriotts Ridge High School in Marriottsville.
Even if a third case were reported at Wilde Lake High, officials would not label it an outbreak because the current two cases happened more than three weeks ago, Caplan said.
“The cases we?ve had seem to be very unrelated,” Caplan said referring to all cases so far.
In Anne Arundel public schools, four MRSA cases wereconfirmed, but all cases are from earlier in the school year, school system spokesman Bob Mosier said.
No evidence links them, said Elin Jones, Anne Arundel County Department of Health spokeswoman.
