(No subject)

[Guest guest]

Hi guys I recently sent a link regarding an article about MRSA that I had

requested IDF to address. I then recontacted them to give me some more

information that is more specific to kids with PID that may have active cases in

the school. I feel this was a very well thoughout response. Hope it is helpful

and reassuring to each of you and your kids.

“There can never be a guarantee that school acquired MRSA will not happen, but I

feel that Dr Malech’s article sets out some reasonable guidance on the subject.

Regular hand washing and the use disinfecting gels are important measures that

clearly do work to reduce the risk of transmission of Staph. In addition it is

important to follow the recommendation about avoiding reuse of towels and damp

gym clothing in the setting of physical exposure to many different individuals

such as in school locker room. It is also important to keep in regular

communication with the child’s teacher to remind them of the importance of

teaching and following good hand washing practice in the classroom.

It is unknown if a child with CVID is at any greater risk than any other child

to acquiring a MRSA infection. This uncertainty has two elements. First, we

just do not have much data to tell us about the sensitivity of our patient

population in general to this organism since the kind of immune deficiency

experienced varies so dramatically from one diagnosis to another. Individuals

with neutrophil defects would be at much greater risk than those patients that

have predominantly antibody deficiency disorders.

The second element of uncertainty is that the diagnosis of CVID itself

represents a group of disorders that have fairly widely divergent immune

defects. The common feature is antibody deficiency, but some CVID patients also

have significant T cell defects while for others the defect seems to be

completely restricted to antibody production.

While we were waiting for the MRSA article, I did an informal survey of members

of the Medical Advisory Committee to learn if MRSA seemed to be a particular

problem for their patients with PIDD. Although some docs did report a few

patients with MRSA infections, this informal survey did not indicate that this

infection was a major problem for our patient community. In general the MRSA

infections that were seen could be handled about as well as those seen in

patients with normal immune systems and none of the docs indicated that they had

a particular anxiety about this infection in CVID patients.

Again, there are no guarantees, but the bulk of experience seems to indicate

that a CVID patient is not at a particularly increased risk from MRSA.”

BARBIE

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