Less than a year ago, my son was diagnosed with MRSA. He worked at a facility for boys who had various behavior problems. Most of these boys were inner-city kids. Most of them poor, and did not have good personal hygiene habits. At first my sons illness was mis-diagnosed as a normal staph infection, but when the antibiotics didn't seem to help, they ran a culture, and found out that it was MRSA. They put him on something else, and so far it has worked, but he has horrible scars. It starts out like a pimple or a boil, but can get much worse within 24 hours. It needs to be lanced right away. Luckily he did it himself, which ended up helping matters in the long run, but I certainly wouldn't advise it. However, my husbands, brothers grand-daughter in Cal has it now and is intensive care. She has a 14 inch incision down her back, where they had to go in and scrape the bacteria. She also had a surgery the other day, and has another one on Friday. Its a day by day thing now. I also spoke to a Hospice Nurse who visits the patent that I do private duty for, and she told me that her daughter came down with it, and was hospitalized with antibiotic therapy for 10 days. She works as a cashier, and it was determined that she got it from handling money, then scratched herself where she had a bite of some sort. It surely doesn't take much to get this horrifying infection. The hospice nurse also told me that the hospice facility that she works for, has many cases of it. Now, more than ever it is very important to wash your hands.