Information online is just not clear enough about this. There’s a lot of talk about washing hands but does washing your hands after touching an infected object/person actually PREVENT you from becoming a carrier? As in, can you just wash MRSA off should you get it on your hands? I started working in a care home with someone who has it and do NOT want to become a carrier by any means but it’s impossible for me not to touch anything at all.
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Yes, washing your hands will render the bacteria inert/kill the bacteria on your hands. As long as you don’t have any cuts or wounds on your hands, and the MRSA stays on the skin, then proper hand washing will remove the danger. That being said, always wear gloves and sanatize before and after taking the gloves off (sanatize the gloves while still on, remove gloves, sanatize your hands after removal).
The best course of action is to maintain standard hygienic practices. Soap and water tear bacteria apart so washing your hands and not touching your face is your best first line of defense. Also, wearing gloves when providing direct care to a mrsa patient is very important as that provides an extra layer of protection (as long as you don’t cross-contaminate anything else while wearing the gloves.) I cared for a few mrsa patients over three years and did not become a carrier.
There is no 100% guarantee in life. Just a bunch of swiss cheese, that you can stack on top of each other to make a ~100%.
Example: Coronavirus. If you wear a mask, it reduces the chance of catching it. If you get vaccinated, it reduces the chance of a bad case. If you keep distance from each other, it reduces the chance to get infected.
If you do all of the above, that’s a solid defense against it.
Yes. Hand washing has been time tested and proven to be the single most effective measure against contamination in a health care setting. All the microbes including MRSA has lipid bilayer cell membrane , which are destroyed when you work up a lather with soap. There are standard procedures ( 8 steps) of hand washing that should be followed , and you’re good to go.
Staph aureus is a very common bacteria that lives on our skin and in our mouths/noses. It occasionally gets under the skin or other places it shouldn’t be, and causes infection.
MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staph aureus, basically regular Staph that has evolved to be resistant to a number of common antibiotics. In other ways, MRSA is still pretty much the same add the regular Staph that lives on all of us. You can wash it off your hands with soap or hand sanitizer. There are still antibiotics that can treat it.
There’s a lot of hype around MRSA being some ultra deadly super germ, but at the end of the day it’s just a pretty common bacteria that can tolerate certain classes of antibiotics.
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