MRSA Released Into the World Fifty Years Ago

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Mar 08, 2011, 08:30 ET

CHICAGO, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The ongoing MRSA epidemic continues to be a major global threat and MRSA was first discovered fifty years ago this year by the late professor Patricia Jevons of the U.K. in 1961. Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium spread and mutated for decades throughout Europe and other continents, which has had a devastating and fatal effect on patients in healthcare facilities worldwide and now in the community.

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This week is Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 6- 12, 2011, and another reminder that the number one problem in healthcare facilities is healthcare-acquired infections, namely MRSA.

"Where is the response from the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the majority of government health officials worldwide to this serious public health disaster?" asks Jeanine Thomas, founder of MRSA Survivors Network. "The continued failure to act and acknowledge the MRSA crisis and the ongoing impact it has on human and animal life is completely astounding – this is another wake-up call and MRSA needs to be a top political priority."

MRSA Survivors Network, founder of World MRSA Day, announces the 2011 Global theme for World MRSA Day and World MRSA Awareness Month – 'The MRSA Epidemic – A Call to Action' and repeats the global theme from 2010. The global theme will continue till a worldwide concerted action has been taken. World MRSA Day is an important annual global observance by activists and healthcare industry personnel on October 2and World MRSA Awareness Month in October. The official website for more information is: www.worldmrsaday.org. Events worldwide are now being planned.

The third annual World MRSA Day kickoff main event will be held on October 1, 2011, at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine: a world-class event that promotes awareness of the disease and encourages its' prevention, detection and treatment. More Americans die every year from invasive MRSA infections than from HIV/AIDS.

2011 sponsors are: StaphAseptic, Roche, Pfizer and Loyola University Health System with media sponsor NBC Chicago.

Emcee for the event is Rob Stafford, news anchor for NBC Chicago and contributing correspondent to NBC Dateline. The Keynote Speaker is Dr. William Jarvis, a world-renowned MRSA expert and infectious disease specialist with Jason and Jarvis Associates, LLC and formerly with the CDC. MRSA survivors and family members will share their personal stories.

MRSA Survivors Network, the first patient advocacy organization in the U.S. to raise the alarm about MRSA and multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO's) and a prominent global leader, will launch a consumer awareness campaign this spring and has recently launched their new website, www.MRSAsurvivors.org, which is the most comprehensive site for MRSA, designed by the Maclyn Group.

Additional MRSA Survivors Network programs are the 'Bandage Care Program,' which provides wound care items directly to MRSA surgical site victims and MRSA Survivors Network has been the U.S. crisis hotline for MRSA patients and family members since 2003.

Co-chairs of the Chicago kickoff event are: Illinois State Representative Patti Bellock, Pat Merryweather – Senior Vice President of Illinois Hospital Association and Jeanine Thomas of MRSA Survivors Network.

For further information on how your company can become a sponsor, a volunteer, plan an event or donate contact MRSA Survivors Network at-[email protected] or 630 325-4354 USA.

Visit us at www.Facebook.com/MRSASurvivorsNetwork and on twitter at www.Twitter.com/MRSAsurvivors.

SOURCE MRSA Survivors Network