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Infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) once was limited to patients who had chronic illnesses or prolonged hospital stays, but, since the mid-1990s, a strain known as community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) has become increasingly common and has received much attention in both the medical literature and the lay press. In an analysis of data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for 1993 to 2005, researchers determined changes in the incidence of emergency department visits for skin infections typically caused by S. aureus and in the use of antibiotics that are effective against CA-MRSA.
Based on data for nearly 375,000 ED visits, the researchers estimated that the number of U.S. ED visits for infectio…