05:25 AM PDT on Thursday, September 16, 2004

By PAT McREYNOLDS / KING 5 News

KING Overuse of antibiotics seems to have paved the way for this superbug.

MUKILTEO, Wash. – There is growing concern about an outbreak of a potentially deadly staph infection. Health officials say it's a superbug – one that's immune to almost all antibiotics.

Many of us naturally carry these bacteria on our skin, but the overuse of antibiotics that treated many other dangerous bugs seems to have paved the way for this superbug – a new strain that attacks healthy hosts and is very difficult to kill.

Stephanie Dixon developed what she thought was a spider bite after hiking on the Olympic Peninsula. But it quickly progressed to something much worse.

"It started getting redder and redder, and by yesterday it was the size of a golf ball," she said.

The pain drove Stephanie to the hospital, but initial treatments with antibiotics did not slow its growth.

Stephanie's story is becoming all too familiar across the country. A seemingly innocent infection is actually methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a new strain of skin infection that is immune to most antibiotics.

Two years ago at the Everett clinic, 13 percent of people with staph infections had the resistant strain. Last year, the number jumped to 35 percent, and in the first nine months of this year to 48 percent.

"This is really a wakeup call. This is really the true superbug that has now caused infection in everyone in this community," said Dr. Po Tu, Everett Clinic.

Sports teams, daycares, and several inmate populations have seen outbreaks.

MRSA patients must take the most powerful antibiotics just to get the infection under control.

Cases in which the infection spread to the bloodstream have already killed four people in Washington state.

MRSA is spread by direct contact to the wound or anything it has come in contact with. The best defense is good hygiene. So, wash your hands regularly and do not take antibiotics unnecessarily.

Most doctors believe overuse of antibiotics is what opened the door for these superbugs in the first place.