Oct 24, 2007 7:34 pm US/Central
2 More 'Superbug' Cases in Naperville
Another Case Closes Holy Angels Catholic School in Aurora
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (Naperville Sun) ―
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When the community strain of the bacteria gets into a cut or scrape, it causes a skin infection with red and pimple-like bumps.
KDKA
Two more cases of drug-resistant staph infections have been confirmed in west suburban schools, the Naperville Sun is reporting.
On Tuesday, area physicians informed Indian Prairie School District 204 officials that two of their students had received treatment for the skin infections caused by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. District 203 informed parents via an e-mail Wednesday afternoon.
"A Prairie Children Preschool student was successfully treated approximately five weeks ago and has already been cleared to return to school," Kathy Birkett, District 204 deputy superintendent, said in the e-mail. "A Frontier Campus student is currently receiving treatment and is out of school while under a physician's care and will not be allowed to return to school without a doctor's release."
News of the diagnoses follows on the heels of Naperville School District 203's announcement last week that two freshman football players at Naperville North High School had cthe infection. One student came down with a confirmed case about a month ago and was hospitalized. Another student had what was suspected to be a staph infection about two weeks ago. The first infected student returned to school about three weeks ago, and the second last week
Both students were cleared of their condition and allowed to return to school before District 203 officials were even informed of their infections. Upon learning of the situation, District 203 officials immediately began to inform parents and undertake "super-cleaning" precautions of athletic facilities at North, as well as at Naperville Central High and the district's five junior highs.
District 203 also commenced a "proactive cleaning" effort of athletic facilities at its high schools and middle schools at that time, even though it knew of no confirmed staph infections among its students. It is continuing those efforts in the wake of Wednesday's news.
"Our Building Operations staff is working with custodial staff at Prairie Children Preschool, Frontier Campus, and throughout our buildings to review guidelines from the Illinois Department of Health to ensure that proper classroom cleaning protocols are followed to address this issue," wrote Birkett.
MRSA has been referred to as a "superbug" lately because of a series of recent cases and deadly outbreaks. Three youths have died in recent weeks, one each in Virginia, New Hampshire and Mississippi.
Holy Angels Catholic School in west suburban Aurora will be closed Thursday as officials deal with a possible staph bacteria infection as well.
Parents were told about 4 p.m. Wednesday about the closure. The message said families would be contacted if the school was going to be closed on Friday.
Holy Angels is a 600-student kindergarten through eighth grade Catholic school on Aurora's near West side.
The STNG Wire contributed to this report.cbs2chicago.com's Most Popular Pages
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