The Treatment Triangle for Staphylococcal Infections

Abstract

The decline in the development of new antibiotics, the recognition that partial vancomycin resistance may result in some vancomycin treatment failures among methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, and the emergence of new community-associated MRSA strains that are genetically unrelated to earlier health care–associated MRSA strains have resulted in a reassessment of how best to treat these infections.¹⁵ Basic practices such as separation of infected patients from other types of patients, routine cleaning of shared equipment, and appropriate hand hygiene by health care workers are being rediscovered as vital means of controlling the transmission of MRSA.⁶ Numerous community-associated MRSA clones . . .