The TeamSafe​® Report #7: MRSA

MRSA: Still happening, yet simple to prevent!

MRSA infections have become common in athletes since the first reported cases in a high school wrestling team in 1993 and a British rugby club in 1998. The problem of infection control has become so serious in professional sports that since 2014 the Duke Center for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention has run the run the Program for Infection Prevention in the National Football League. Peyton Manning, Kellen Winslow, Jim Kelly, Drew Gooden, Mike Gansey, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rios, Paul Pierce, Kenyon Martin, Braylon Edwards, Grant Hill, and most recently Alex Smith are just some of the professional athletes to be affected. These infections can spread from player to player as the Redskins, Buccaneers, Rams, Falcons, Browns, USC, and many colleges and high schools have discovered.

After Brandon Noble's infection in 2004, "the Redskins ripped out their entire training facility and installed a new one, spraying germ-killing coatings on the lockers and discarding the shared benches for individual stools."

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