Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is untreatable with most antibiotics and can cause potentially deadly complications like pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical wound infections.
Overuse and improper use of antibiotics are the main reasons that staph and other bacteria have developed resistance to the many of the drugs.
Writing in the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
Designating certain surgical hospitals as "antibiotic-free" would cut patients' risk of developing MRSA after an operation, Spigelman argues. Patients who do develop a wound infection would have to be transferred to a hospital where antibiotics are used.
In addition, surgeons and staff working in antibiotic-free centers could not enter antibiotic-using hospitals, in order to prevent them from picking up MRSA.
The other part of Spigelman's proposal focuses on how surgeons' hands, and even patients' wounds, are cleaned. Similar to what happens with antibiotics, washing away the many harmless or "good" bacteria on the skin may "allow room" for MRSA and other resistant bugs to settle, Spigelman points out.
He suggests that studies could look into the usefulness of solutions containing beneficial bacteria, called probiotics. These bugs include the bacteria used in fermented foods like yogurt.
Bacteria, Spigelman points out, generally don't lie down on top of each other, but settle in isolated colonies. So slathering a probiotic solution on clean skin could set up a healthy population of good bacteria that would crowd out any harmful bugs that would have taken residence.
