MRSA superbug: Rise in antibiotic-resistant staph cases a warning for Australia

Rania Spooner

The surgery on the older lady's wrist was so minor it was performed while she was awake sitting up in the chair.

It seemed to have gone well at first but her family believes it was at that day clinic in regional Victoria where she picked up the superbug she'd never shake.

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Superbugs could kill more than cancer

An 18-month review into antimicrobial resistance warns that superbugs will kill more people by 2050 than cancer does in 2016, if left unchecked.

Drug-resistant golden staph, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), usually harmless on the skin, had reached her blood and within two days her health was plummeting.

Powerful intravenous antibiotics were pumped into her body periodically over the next 18 months, but each time an infection would again flare up causing swelling, weeping wounds, discoloured skin and delirium.

Her daughter Deborah made the agonising decision to let her slip away this August.

Before the surgery her mother was living an active life baking, sewing and volunteering around her community. Each time she fell ill again the 86-year-old was stripped of a little more independence.

Her children and grandchildren had to dress in disposable yellow gowns and gloves to visit, unable to throw their arms around her when they wanted to most.

While the family deal with their loss, Deborah is urging Australians to do their bit against superbugs and only use antibiotics when they're needed.

Deborah (left) with her siblings and their mother who died after picking up a superbug during a routine day surgery. Photo: Supplied

"Resistant bacteria is not just something you hear about on the television, they really happen and they might happen to anybody, it might be you or your family and we need to be very careful about the way that we use antibiotics," she said.

There were about 1500 cases of staph in Australian hospitals reported in the year to July 2015 and of those about 22 per cent, or 331 cases, were resistant to drugs, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports.

Deborah's mother died after she picked up a drug resistant golden staph infection during a minor procedure on her wrist. Photo: Supplied

To combat increasingly resistant bacteria, viruses, parasites and other disease-causing organisms the government last week revealed the National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy, a four-year plan to boost education and research.

Health Minister Sussan Ley warned Australia's use of antibiotics in general practice was 20 per cent higher than the OECD average and said bringing prescribing rates down was critical.

The first Australian report on antimicrobial use and resistance released earlier this year revealed that in 2014 more than 30 million prescriptions for antibiotics were provided and almost half of the Australian population had been given at least one course.

Associate Professor Katie Flanagan from the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, warned of cases of drug resistance to antibiotics considered a last resort starting to emerge in Australia.

"More worryingly, we are now starting to see cases of resistance to our last-resort antibiotics such as meropenem, and are therefore facing a future where some infections may be impossible to treat," she said.

Dr Lynn Weekes, the chief executive of independent advisory body NPS MedicineWise, said the issue was worse for compromised or older Australians like Deborah's mother but drug resistant bugs could be picked up anywhere.

"This is not some exotic bug, MRSA is fairly common in our communities and our hospitals," she said.

"It used to be that we thought you'd only get golden staph when you went into hospital. In the last five or 10 years we've been starting to see golden staph in the community and it's much more prevalent that it used to be."

While we are using antibiotics less, Dr Weekes said Australia still had a way to go before unnecessary use was eradicated.

"The more we throw more and more powerful antibiotics at these bugs the few that survive are then going to be highly resistant to all the things that we have in our arsenal," she said.

"As a community what we can do is not use antibiotics when we don't need them. All of us have a responsibility in that way."

To learn about Antibiotic Awareness Week, which launches Monday, visit nps.org.au/aaw2016.