Dec 17, 2013 10:32 AM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

A deadly drug-resistant bacteria that was once confined to hospitals and other health facilities is emerging in communities at large, striking otherwise healthy people, USA Today reported.

The doctors at the Saint Joseph London hospital were alarmed when three patients entered their hospital with infections caused by the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

"What really bothered me was the rapidity of their deterioration, a matter of hours," Muhammad Iqbal, a pulmonologist who chairs the infection control committee at the hospital told USA Today. "We were worried that something was spreading across the community."

The first patient entered the London, Ky., hospital on March 2, coughing up bits of lung tissue. What the patient thought was a light flu the night before resulted in his s organs failing and him in a coma in less than 24 hours, USA Today reported. Similar cases occurred in their next two patients a 54-year-old man who died within hours of arriving to the hospital and a 28-yeard-old woman who was dead on arrival.

The three cases pushed Iqbal and his colleagues to the front lines of modern medicine's struggle against MRSA. They realized a deadly form of the MRSA bacteria -possibly the nation's most daunting public health threat - is more persistent than any drug-defying bug and spreads more widely.

The drug-resistant bacteria causes relatively minor skin infections that still can be treated effectively with certain antibiotics. However, in some of the cases, the infection even destroys the tissue and causes swelling that may need hospitalization.

When it enters the bloodstream or attacks the lungs as bacterial pneumonia, it becomes dangerous and more often it proves to fatal.

The radio program "News Tonight Africa" reported that every year, hundreds and thousands of people in America are admitted to the hospitals because of bacterial pneumonia caused by MRSA.

USA Today found MRSA infections, particularly outside of health care facilities, are much more common than government statistics suggest.

In recent years, new MRSA is striking an increasing number of schoolchildren, soldiers, prison inmates and even NFL players.

Most MRSA cases go uncounted, according to USA Today. In 2011, the center for  reported 80,500 such cases, however that figure represents less 20 percent of the hospitalizations that year "in which billing data show an MRSA diagnosis."

 "It's not about winning or losing the battle [against MRSA], it's that the battle is shifting", Ramanan Laxminarayan, a Princeton University research scholar and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, told USA Today. "You're seeing people who are young and healthy getting this [in the community], and it's very serious. ... And it's not picked up in the statistics."

MRSA can be contracted when someone touches a person who carries the bacteria or touch something that an infected person touched and poor hygeine. 

Washing hands thoroughly, not sharing personal items like razors and towels, and covering cuts and scrapes can prevent MRSA.

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