Infection spurs Wrentham school cleanup
A cleaning crew worked to sanitize a Wrentham elementary school last night after a second-grade girl was diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, but Superintendent Jeffrey Marsden said other children are not at risk.
"There's no issue with kids" contracting the disease, Mardsen told the Globe, because the infection is most commonly spread by skin-to-skin contact. In a letter to parents sent home with pupils from the Delaney School yesterday, Marsden said "there is absolutely no evidence that the student contracted the disease at school."
The child is suffering from Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which has erupted recently onto the national health radar, with officials saying it is much more common than previously thought.
It caused more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the United States in 2005, according to a study published in the Oct. 17 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. A Virginia high school student died earlier this week from the disease, and a 4-year-old New Hampshire girl died earlier this month. Recent cases have been reported in Connecticut, Maryland, and Ohio.
Marsden said he learned about the Wrentham girl's diagnosis yesterday, but was not sure when or how the ailment had been detected. He had spoken with the pupil's mother, and "the report was that she was doing very well" at home. She has not been hospitalized, he said. Her name was not released.
"The mom was shaken up, was scared, but was positive about how her child was responding," he said. "From what I understand, it's not the same strain of MRSA that's causing some of these serious issues. We're told it's not the most dangerous, but still serious for a kid, no doubt about it."
Marsden said that he did not know when the student would return to school, but that classes would go on as usual today. Marsden said that there was no indication how the student picked up the infection and that the cleanup was done as "just a precautionary measure."
"We really wanted to take a proactive approach," Marsden said.
Donna Rheaume, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said the steps taken by the school are the first recommended in prevention. The public should also follow the department's prevention guidelines outlined on its website, (http://mass.gov/dph/cdc/antibiotic/mrsa_school_athletics.htm#prevention) which include washing hands frequently, not sharing towels, and keeping cuts covered and clean.
The public health department has been doing outreach work with communities and school officials, Rheaume said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there have been 2,500 cases of MRSA in Massachusetts this year, of which 400 to 500 have or will result in fatalities, Rheaume said.
Most fatalities occur in the elderly with underlying immune conditions in long-term-care facilities, she said. 