Thursday, May 23, 2013 MRSA Cases in Alaska Increase Part I The
Alaska Dept. of Health and Social Services doesn’t consider MRSA
a reportable condition, which makes tracking its prevalence a
challenge. On the heels of the discovery of Methicillin-
resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or MRSA, the drug-resistant
Staph infection in the neonatal intensive care unit of
Providence, new questions are being raised about the state's
tracking of the sometimes fatal infections. “It is a bacteria
that is resistant to a group of antibiotic,” said Medical
Epidemiologist Dr. Beth Funk of the State of Alaska Department
of Health & Social Services. That resistance is what can make
MRSA infections so dangerous. In the past, most MRSA infections
happened in hospitals and other health care institutions and the
most recent cases of MRSA in Alaska were found on the skin of
infants in the Providence NICU in April 2011. “We are
segregating the babies that we know have it. Even though they
are not sick from the babies that we know don’t