Microblogology shares a study by the Evanston Northwestern’s MRSA screening program that demonstrates that the most effective ways to control infectious diseases can also be the cheapest, and least ’scientific.’ To study epidemiology is to be smart about pathogens. Where are they coming from, how do they infect, what physical barriers can we set up to stop the spread of pathogens from patient to patient?

The study found that 8.5% of their patients carried MRSA into the hospital (carried, not necessarily infected with). By isolating these patients and taking special precautions, in terms of hygienic practices, the hospital was able to cut down hospital-acquired infections 70%.

This is a more cheaper way to control MRSA than drug development, and it doesn’t give the bacteria a chance to development new antibiotic resistance in the first place. Simple cleanliness and hygiene can probably to attributed to the lessening of the roles of infectious pathogens to the human death rate perhaps even more than antibiotics or vaccines. We seem to have forgotten this along the way; that chemicals and not efficient planning is the more effective method of preventing infections.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under link out, medicine, microbiology, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.