But this form of staph is actually starting to look like the flesh-eating bacteria.
More recently two vaccines against staph infection, made by nabi Biopharmaceuticals and Inhibitex , failed in big trials.
But about 60 to 70 percent of staph in U.S. hospitals has developed resistance to methicillin.
Big hospitals are breeding grounds for drug-resistant staph, pseudomonas and C. diff bacteria.
The test spots resistant staph in two hours, versus two or three days for standard bacterial cultures.
The official name is MRSA, M-R-S-A - a highly drug-resistant staph infection that's challenged researchers for most of this decade.
Meanwhile, Roche spinoff Basilea, developing a successor to Rocephin, touts its new drug, ceftobiprole, against drug-resistant staph infections.
This same staph bug has rippled through the National Football League, infecting muscular limbs skinned by artificial turf.
Hospitals test patients to identify carriers of staph, which "colonizes" the nose when it is not causing infection.
Two types of bacteria cause impetigo Staphylococcus aureus (staph), which is most common, and Streptococcus pyogenes (strep).
Currently, about 40 percent of us have staph bacteria on our skin-- and it rarely causes a problem.
Staph molecules are good at eluding the immune system because they're disguised by an abundant coat of sugars.
The initial effectiveness trial in staph skin infections could yield results this year.
Medical technology firm BD hopes a fancy molecular test can help ferret out MRSA, a common drug-defying staph bug.
At one time, patients might have suffered from gangrene or staph infections, but early treatment with antibiotics prevents that.
Experts estimate that staph is present on 2 to 3 percent of surfaces in public places-- more in hospitals.
Staph bacteria produce a toxin that causes impetigo to spread to nearby skin.
They have a very different weapon, something that politicians find as scary as methicillin-resistant staph: the "conflict of interest" charge.
Haggis made a similar choice in real life with his best friend, who was brain dead from a staph infection.
Hospital safety advocates expect the California Hospital Association to kill a new bill that would force hospitals to report staph infections.
This has managed to mutate to resist even the antibiotic described as the "last line of defence" against such staph infections.
But when SmithKline researchers screened their compound collection against the novel proteins from staph and strep bacteria, they found few good leads.
Last year, 15% of patients tested positive for some type of staph.
Strict infection-control measures and prudent antibiotic use have let hospitals in the Netherlands avoid the resistant staph strains that plague most U.S. hospitals.
Two final-stage trials, each covering a thousand patients with staph skin infections, aim to clinch a more definitive difference, with results due this summer.
And MRSA, (a staph bacteria resistant to common antibiotics) can be present and survive on surfaces for up to 8-9 days based on studies.
In one particularly disastrous incident in 1928, 12 children in Australia died from staph infections after getting the diptheria vaccine from the same multi-dose bottle.
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My initial thoughts on staph infection were that it was a disease you get in the hospital of if you live in a really filthy environment.
He has designed a drug, telavancin, that may work three times as fast as vancomycin, which can take nine days or more to quell a staph infection.
More recently two vaccines against staph infection, made by nabi Biopharmaceuticals and Inhibitex (nasdaq: INHX - news - people ), failed in big trials.
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