In simple terms, whats Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus?

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA is a nasty staph infection which is generally resistent to quite a few antibiotics. It is also referred to as a "super-bug" because of this resistance.

People can be carriers of MRSA even if they have no symptoms. It generally colonizes within the nose or on the skin. You can get infected with MRSA if it gets through open wounds or cuts.

It can cause boils, fevers, blood infections, pneumonia...

Really nasty!

A bacterium that probably won't go away by taking Methicillin.

Staph is a very common bacteria and is only problematic for use if we breathe it in, get it in our throats or in our blood. With MRSA, the antibiotics that used to kill this organism dont work. So, we must seek out other antibiotics.

Staph aureus is the commonest cause of skin, wound, and a number of other types of bacterial infections.

When penicillin was first discovered, staphloccocal infections could be treated with that antibiotic. Since then, the bug has developed mutations which make it resistant to many penicillin-type drugs. Methicillin and flucloxacillin are newer generations of peniciilins which were designed to treat mutations of staph that were resistant to plain penicillin. The bug has mutated further and some strains are resistant even to methicillin and flucloxacillin.

There are often other antibiotics such as vancomycin which can treat methicillin resistant staph, but the bug's tendency to keep developing resistance to antibiotics is a worry.

Its basically called MRSA. Which is a type of Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to the usual medicine of Methicillin.