UK Deaths Related to MRSA Show Significant Increase

Death certificates mentioning methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as either a direct or an underlying cause of death have increased significantly from 51 in 1993 to 800 in 2002, according to research carried out by the UK Health Protection Agency and the Office of National Statistics.

Dr Georgia Duckworth, an MRSA expert at the Agency said: "It has always been difficult to establish how many people die directly as a result of an infection with MRSA, because there is no separate category on routine death certificates for MRSA, and people who suffer from MRSA are usually very sick already and therefore vulnerable to infection. This is the second study where death certificates have been scrutinised manually for any mentions of Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA as either the main cause or a contributing factor to death, so we can estimate the overall contribution that MRSA makes to mortality. This was compared with rates of bloodstream infection (bacteraemia) over the same period (1993 to 2002)."

"We found that deaths involving MRSA increased over 15 fold and the reporting rates of bacteraemia increased 24 fold between 1993 and 2002."

• In 1998 there were 872 deaths certificates mentioning Staphylococcus aureus, 412 (47%) of which mentioned MRSA.
• This rose to 1,221 and 800 (66%) respectively in 2002.
• The number of certificates where Staphylococcus aureus was the underlying cause of death increased from 156 in 1993 to 394 in 2002
• For MRSA as the underlying cause of death increased from 15 in 1993, to 248 in 2002. Laboratory reports of blood poisoning caused by MRSA also increased from 210 in 1993 to 5,309 in 2002.
• Older age groups were affected predominantly

"It is difficult to establish whether MRSA is the underlying cause of a patient’s death or just a contributory factor because the majority of infections are in people who are already very sick, and we don’t know if they would have died as a result of their underlying illness whether or not they had MRSA. MRSA was involved in 0.07% of all deaths. This research however does show that MRSA is making an increasing contribution to illness and mortality."

Dr Duckworth concluded: "By following good infection control procedures, the spread of MRSA and other infections in hospital can be limited and controlled. However, although many of these infections can be prevented, they cannot be totally eradicated as they are the price we pay for advances in medical treatments, which often allow patients who are severely sick and vulnerable to infection, to survive."