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American Morning

Paging Dr. Gupta: Staph Infection

Aired October 16, 2003 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A staph infection that is resistant to antibiotics is affecting a growing number of athletes.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center to tell us what exactly has doctors so concerned. Sanjay, good morning again.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, typically thought of as an infection that primarily affects sick people, we're starting to see these staph infections, skin infections, actually make their way out of hospitals where they're most commonly found onto the playing field, affecting athletes, or going from sick people to healthy and robust people, and that's somewhat of a concern. They are treatable, they are mild, but they are significant because of the certain population of people now being increasingly affected by these infections.

Several groups of athletes being affected over the past couple of years now. The CDC has been keeping track of this, football players in Pennsylvania and Indiana, wrestlers in Indiana, as well. There's fencers as well that has been affected by these. There is no mandated reporting of these sorts of infections, but there are about 120,000 cases a year.

Now staph is something that we've talked about before. Staph lococous (ph) is the full name. It's a type of bacteria that's actually normally found on your skin and on your nose, but sometimes it can develop an antibiotic resistance in which case it's called MRSA. The name's not that important, but here's what's most important. It's most commonly, again, found in health care environments. We're also seeing it from significant skin-to-skin contact, shared items, crowded locations and compromised skin. And it's those last four things, Soledad, that so many athletes sometimes endure, and that's why we're probably seeing a little bit of an increase, a blip, as the CDC put it, in the athletes with these staph infections -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Sanjay, if it's resistant to antibiotics, how long is it taking these healthy people to recover from the infection?

GUPTA: Well, it is resistant to one of the antibiotics, which is a methicillin (ph), which is a derivative of penicillin. We've talked about antibiotic resistance so much.

Luckily in this situation there are other antibiotics to treat this thing. The typical symptoms, as you can see there, being the skin infection with infection, fever, that sort of stuff. But it rarely causes more serious things, which is what people sort of worry about with these skin infections. Could it lead to more serious bone infections, pneumonia or severe life threatening bloodstream infections? No, because in answer to your question, while it is resistant to this one antibiotic, there are very good other antibiotics out there. It's important to recognize this, which is why they put out what's called an alert on skin infections. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has put out this alert, so people can be sure to examine their skin.

One example I though was interesting. People asked, well, how does it really -- do they share clothing, or what's going on here? With the fencers in particular, they've actually had this wire sensor that they wear, and it turned out that this wire sensor was being distributed from fencer to fencer without being properly cleaned, and that was probably the cause, in this case, of the transmission of this particular infection. But it can really be transmitted in several different ways.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, just a cause for concern at this point, nothing more serious than that. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: You, too, Soledad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 16, 2003 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A staph infection that is resistant to antibiotics is affecting a growing number of athletes.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center to tell us what exactly has doctors so concerned. Sanjay, good morning again.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, typically thought of as an infection that primarily affects sick people, we're starting to see these staph infections, skin infections, actually make their way out of hospitals where they're most commonly found onto the playing field, affecting athletes, or going from sick people to healthy and robust people, and that's somewhat of a concern. They are treatable, they are mild, but they are significant because of the certain population of people now being increasingly affected by these infections.

Several groups of athletes being affected over the past couple of years now. The CDC has been keeping track of this, football players in Pennsylvania and Indiana, wrestlers in Indiana, as well. There's fencers as well that has been affected by these. There is no mandated reporting of these sorts of infections, but there are about 120,000 cases a year.

Now staph is something that we've talked about before. Staph lococous (ph) is the full name. It's a type of bacteria that's actually normally found on your skin and on your nose, but sometimes it can develop an antibiotic resistance in which case it's called MRSA. The name's not that important, but here's what's most important. It's most commonly, again, found in health care environments. We're also seeing it from significant skin-to-skin contact, shared items, crowded locations and compromised skin. And it's those last four things, Soledad, that so many athletes sometimes endure, and that's why we're probably seeing a little bit of an increase, a blip, as the CDC put it, in the athletes with these staph infections -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Sanjay, if it's resistant to antibiotics, how long is it taking these healthy people to recover from the infection?

GUPTA: Well, it is resistant to one of the antibiotics, which is a methicillin (ph), which is a derivative of penicillin. We've talked about antibiotic resistance so much.

Luckily in this situation there are other antibiotics to treat this thing. The typical symptoms, as you can see there, being the skin infection with infection, fever, that sort of stuff. But it rarely causes more serious things, which is what people sort of worry about with these skin infections. Could it lead to more serious bone infections, pneumonia or severe life threatening bloodstream infections? No, because in answer to your question, while it is resistant to this one antibiotic, there are very good other antibiotics out there. It's important to recognize this, which is why they put out what's called an alert on skin infections. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has put out this alert, so people can be sure to examine their skin.

One example I though was interesting. People asked, well, how does it really -- do they share clothing, or what's going on here? With the fencers in particular, they've actually had this wire sensor that they wear, and it turned out that this wire sensor was being distributed from fencer to fencer without being properly cleaned, and that was probably the cause, in this case, of the transmission of this particular infection. But it can really be transmitted in several different ways.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, just a cause for concern at this point, nothing more serious than that. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: You, too, Soledad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com