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A well-informed parent may be a child's best defense against potentially dangerous drug-resistant skin infections. A CDC Foundation partnership with Pfizer Inc is helping CDC educate parents about how to recognize and prevent MRSA. |
Protect Your Family from MRSA
As kids head back to classrooms and sports venues, a CDC Foundation partnership with Pfizer Inc called the National MRSA Education Initiative is helping CDC educate parents about how to recognize and prevent skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a potentially dangerous type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics.
MRSA is spread by:
- Having direct contact with another person's infection
- Sharing personal items, such as towels or razors, that have touched infected skin
- Touching surfaces or items, such as used bandages, contaminated with MRSA
Doctors receive an estimated 12 million visits each year from Americans of all ages with staph infections, half of which are MRSA. As with regular staph infections, recognizing the signs and receiving treatment for MRSA skin infections in the early stages reduces the chances of the infection becoming severe.
Help Prevent the Spread of MRSA
- Keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered
- Encourage good hygiene such as cleaning hands regularly
- Discourage sharing of personal items such as towels and razors
Recognize the Signs
Most staph skin infections, including MRSA, appear as a bump or infected area on the skin that may be:
- Red
- Swollen
- Painful
- Warm to the touch
- Full of pus or other drainage
- Accompanied by a fever
Take Action
If you suspect a MRSA skin infection, cover the area with a bandage and contact your healthcare professional. It is especially important to contact your healthcare professional if signs and symptoms of an MRSA skin infection are accompanied by a fever.
To learn more about MRSA or to access materials, visit www.cdc.gov/MRSA or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.
National MRSA Education Initiative
The National MRSA Education Initiative is a comprehensive public education campaign to help parents and healthcare professionals recognize, treat and prevent MRSA skin infections in their families and patients. With a grant from Pfizer Inc, the CDC Foundation enabled CDC to test educational messages about MRSA among moms and healthcare providers - two key groups CDC wanted to educate about MRSA. CDC was then able to use the messages to create posters, fact sheets, brochures, flyers, e-cards and Web-based content that are being distributed nationwide.
"MRSA is a growing threat to community health. We at Pfizer recognized the need to get CDC's messages about how to detect and prevent the spread of MRSA out to a broader audience. This partnership through the CDC Foundation gave us an opportunity to enable CDC to do just that," says Mark Kunkel, M.D., Executive Director and Pfizer's Global Medical Therapeutic Area Head for Anti-infectives and HIV.