Int'l MRSA Testing Week April 1-7 - MRSA Screening Saves Lives

CHICAGO, April 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Int'l MRSA Testing Week April 1-7, the 8th annual global awareness campaign draws critical attention for all hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and nursing homes to screen high risk patients for MRSA and conduct a 'search and destroy'. The 2018 global theme is: "Stop MRSA with Active Detection".

"MRSA and Staph aureus infections are the number one problem (medical error) in U.S. healthcare facilities and greatly under reported," states Jeanine Thomas, founder of MRSA Survivors Network and Int'l MRSA Testing Week. The Veteran's Administration has implemented ADI – active detection and isolation in their 150 health facilities since 2007 and reduced their infection rates by over 80%.

In the era of paying for performance and if we are to believe in patient safety, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (including the CDC) should implement ADI as Northern European countries have done successfully; some for decades. High MRSA infection rates are fueling the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) global public health crisis.

Sponsors: Roche, Cepheid, Melinta.

So many lives have been lost and so much needless pain and suffering from these infections continues from the ongoing MRSA epidemic. Many MRSA patients' immune systems are destroyed, lose their job, become permanently disabled and forced to file bankruptcy. The late Barry M. Farr M.D., emeritus professor at UVA and whose hospital was the first to start screening for MRSA in 1978 was quoted as saying, "For decades patients were carted off to the morgue having died from MRSA and nothing was said". This complacency continues today by most healthcare facilities – it's dehumanizing.

10th Anniversary of World MRSA Day/Month

World MRSA Day – October 2 and World MRSA Day – October celebrate 10 years of a global awareness campaign and the World MRSA Day Kickoff event and Global C. difficile Summit will be held September 29, 2018 in Chicago. An extended program with speakers is being planned to raise awareness for MRSA, C. diff, HAI's, sepsis and AMR.

Dr. William R. Jarvis, formerly with the CDC, a world-renowned MRSA and ID specialist and president of Jason and Jarvis Associates LLC will be Keynote Speaker.

Sponsors: Roche, Cepheid, NBC5 Chicago, Telligen.

MRSA Survivors Network was the first patient advocacy organization in the U.S. to raise the alarm concerning MRSA and healthcare-acquired infections. 

For information on becoming a Corporate Sponsor, donate, or volunteer contact us at: 630 325-4354, www.MRSAsurvivors.org , [email protected] ,  Twitter.com/MRSAsurvivors and at Facebook.com/MRSASurvivorsNetwork.

Media contact:Jeanine Thomas[email protected] 630-325-4354

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SOURCE MRSA Survivors Network