A southern Virginia school district closed its 21 schools for cleaning Wednesday after a 17-year-old high school senior died Monday from what his mother said was adangerous strain of staph infection.
The Bedford County school district has not yet received medical confirmation the boy had the drug-resistant form of staph called MRSA, but six other cases of MRSA have been confirmed in the district since school began in late August, Superintendent James G. Blevins said.
While an estimated 30 percent of healthy people carry some form of staph on their skin or in their noses, the MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, strain is resistant to some key antibiotics. MRSA received national attention this week when the Journal of the American Medical Association reported an estimated 19,000 Americans had died from the infection in 2005 – many more than previous estimated.
It is difficult to calculate whether the rash of infections in Bedford County are part of a larger trend in the state because doctors are not required to report individual staph infections to the state department of health. They do have to report outbreaks of multiple infections.
As of Sept. 19, three MRSA outbreaks had been reported this year at other locations including a school, Virginia Department of Health spokesman Robert Parker said. Six outbreaks were reported in 2005 and five in 2004.
Two schools in Rappahanock County shut down for cleaning last week after a parent reported that his son was infected with MRSA, according to that district’s superintendent. A Newport News high school closed its weight room last week after four students were infected with staph – at least one of them with MRSA. Several students have also been infected in Campbell County, officials said.
Montgomery County in Maryland now has 13 confirmed case of MSRA.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
