Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA): Prevention and Treatment

Antibiotic Resistance As A Cause

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Some health professionals cite antibiotic resistance as a cause of MRSA. As its name suggests, methicillin is an antibiotic and is a relative of penicillin. Once it could be used successfully against staphylococci bacteria, but a strain of these bacteria became resistant to the antibiotic. Now, the bacteria not only resists methicillin and penicillin but oxacillin and amoxicillin as well. Because these antibiotics are used so often to treat other types of Staph infections, MRSA has become sometimes very difficult to treat. Health professionals believe the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria became resistant because antibiotics have been overused and overprescribed. Though the drugs killed off weaker bacteria, it did not kill stronger bacteria. These stronger bacteria went on to reproduce and are now able to survive the antibiotics in the methicillin family. This is called antibiotic resistance.

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