Labs Should Report Staph Infections, Health Department Says
By Special to the Sun | October 25, 2007
The city's health department wants laboratories in New York City to report cases of antibiotic-resistant staph infections, according to a proposal outlined yesterday.
The current health code does not require the reporting of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or MRSA, a skin infection that has made headlines in recent weeks after a number of students nationwide became infected.
MRSA was linked to the death of a 17-year-old in Virginia last week.
The city's proposal would place the burden of automatic, electronic reporting on laboratories, not doctors.
"We've been investigating and looking into MRSA," the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said. "We can't really track the trends without reporting."
