MRSA screening found to have little difference on infection rates

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared rates of infection in over 20,000 surgical patients where some were screened for the so-called "superbug" and others not.

The report concluded that there was very little difference in those developing the disease between the two groups. MRSA carriers throughout the study were treated with contact isolation, topical decolonisation (essentially decontamination of infected areas) and other MRSA-specific treatments. However, more than half of the 93 patients who acquired the infection had negative screens on admission.

MRSA has been known since the 1960s but infection rates have increased in recent years; it is though this is due to lower standards of cleanliness in hospital and poor staff hygiene.

In January this year, Gordon Brown pledged that all patients being admitted to English hospitals would be automatically screened for MRSA and Clostridium Difficile, along with a number of other measures such as deep-cleaning and more infection control staff to tackle increasing levels of these serious hospital acquired infections.

This recent study indicates that screening measures may be ineffectual in controlling the disease.

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