Isolating Bacteria

• The most effective and necessary form of isolation starts with substance isolation, or isolating the bacterium. Caregivers and health workers who come into contact with numerous people must take special precautions to ensure that they do not spread bacteria. After every contact with every patient, wash your hands because you may have touched a colonized MRSA patient (an asymptomatic host) without knowing it. Wear gloves when working with a MRSA patient or when there is an indirect contact, i.e., contact with the colonized or infected person's urine, stools etc.
  
  

Active Surveillance

• Follow a policy called "active surveillance" for MRSA isolation, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Screen all high-risk patients for MRSA by obtaining cultures whenever such patients are admitted to hospital and on every subsequent visit, whether the visit is MRSA- related or whether the patient has unrelated ailments. Presume that patients who have had MRSA in the past can be carriers of MRSA at any time since the bacterium may never be fully eradicated. The aim is to identify patients with potential MRSA and put them into contact isolation to prevent other patients from being exposed.
  
  Do not place a carrier of MRSA in the same room as other patients without MRSA. However, a carrier can be placed in a room in which there is another carrier. Patients with asymptomatic carriage or colonization of MRSA must be placed under contact isolation the entire time they are in a health care setting.
  
  

Going to Work

• The CDC mandates exclusion from work for people with open wound MRSA. Keep those with active infections in physical isolation in the workplace and avoid skin-to-skin contact with others. Wash clothes, equipment and other related items with detergent after every use at home, in the hospital and in the workplace.