Locker rooms, it seems, are now home to more than just athletic equipment and dirty uniforms.
With an outbreak of the drug-resistant staph infection known as MRSA, athletic facilities across the country are making special effort to take a number of precautions, including scrubbing down the locker room with bleach and having players take home their practice uniforms and equipment each night for cleaning, in order to stave off what is known as a “super bug.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control web site (www.cdc.gov), “Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a type of staph that is resistant to certain antibiotics. These antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin.” However, after numerous stories in the media about athletes’ infections, athletic programs are facing scrutiny. If a MRSA infection is not diagnosed correctly and treated promptly, the results can catastrophic. The infection can enter a person’s blood, internal organs or bones and cause death.
In the past, “strawberries” or other wounds have been a daily part of sports, something of little concern to most and sometimes even seen as a badge of pride to others. Arising after a fall on turf or another hard surface, a skin abrasion or open sore can be home to infection, but most often nothing serious. However, for former Iona College football player Nick Zaffarese, his antibiotic-resistant staph infection cost him his leg two years ago.
Student Athlete Sues School Over Bout with MRSA
Zaffarese’s bout with MRSA began with an ingrown hair on his inner thigh. Although he informed trainers that it was painful and swollen they did not advise him to seek medical attention until he told them it was oozing. After a game, Zaffarese went home with a high fever and collapsed. His leg ultimately turned black and he had to have surgery, his first of seven.
In his lawsuit against Iona College, Zaffarese accuses team trainers of initially brushing off his infection in September 2005. He also labels the team’s locker room as an unsanitary environment in which players shared towels and equipment, a large contributor to the spread of staph infections. The lawsuit seeks more than $250,000 in damages.
Although the school’s spokeswoman Cecilia Donohoe declined to comment in the media on the lawsuit, she denied Zaffarese’s description of the facilities, calling the college’s athletic facilities “immaculate.”
Artificial Turf Implicated as Habitat for MRSA
Indoor facilities are not the only ones under fire for the spread of MRSA. Western Pennsylvania Synthetic grass or turf fields have been in the news after a strain of MRSA was discovered in 17 Allegheny County school districts. A Pittsburgh television station reported a possible connection between MRSA and artificial turf because the synthetic material of the turf does not absorb or break down bodily fluids such as blood or spit the same way a natural grass or dirt field would.
The answer, it seems, may not be that simple. Allegheny County Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole said synthetic turf isn’t the reason for an increase of MRSA, although it can cause more abrasions making players’ more susceptible to infection.
“(The athlete) breaks the skin and maybe creates an avenue for infection, but it doesn’t cause it,” Cole said. “Any open wound, any break in the skin, should be covered. It should have a clean, dry bandage.”
Testing has been done on several synthetic fields over the past few years to see whether or not it is the home to MRSA. While some studies have failed to discover the presence of the bacteria, a recent study by an independent testing laboratory in Michigan confirmed MRSA in a synthetic turf field at an unnamed university.
In order to understand the implications of this study and determine the course of action, turf managers have been put in a difficult position. Although some are still skeptical if MRSA can survive on the synthetic field under conditions of intensive sustained use, the question is what to do about it.
With the threat of lawsuits looming over schools, it is in the legal best interest of athletic programs to practice extra caution whether indoors or outdoors.
