| Editor’s note: FireRescue1 expert columnists share their expertise about the risk MRSA poses to firefighters. Read Contamination: Don’t Pass It On by Mike McEvoy, and Building a Resistance Against MRSA by Jim Upchurch. |
By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — State health officials have traced five confirmed cases of a drug-resistant staph infection to a Fort Collins firefighter training center.
One other recruit likely has the infection, known as MRSA, but that case has not been confirmed, said Dr. Ken Gersham, chief of the communicable disease program at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The six recruits were among 15 individuals training at Poudre Valley Fire Authority sites in Fort Collins, Gersham said. Training began in mid-September and the state health department was called to investigate two weeks ago, he said.
MRSA mostly causes skin infections such as boils and abscesses. It can sometimes cause life-threatening blood infections.
The recruits have been referred to each of their department’s occupational health care providers for treatment, Gersham said.
Poudre Valley Fire Authority spokesman Patrick Love says the center has been cleaned and that managers are taking other steps recommended by health officials.
“We are taking this very seriously,” Love said.
Love and health officials said the infections are not related to the facility itself. As many as 4 million Americans carry the infection and a particular set of circumstances can cause an outbreak, Gersham said.
“A combination of close personal contact over a long period of time and the sharing of towels and other personal items can lead to an outbreak,” he said. Similar outbreaks have occurred on sports teams and in prisons, Gersham said.
The Fort Collins facility is part of a regional training system serving departments from Boulder to southern Wyoming.
Departments from Laramie and Greeley pulled their recruits out of the academy after the MRSA diagnosis, and Monday classes were canceled.
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