Team:TU-Delft/Project

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus is a bacterium responsible for for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. MRSA can be any strain of Staphylococcus aureus that has developed, through the process of natural selection, resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics. MRSA is especially troublesome in hospitals, prisons and nursing homes, where patients with open wounds, invasive devices, and weakened immune systems are at greater risk of infection than the general public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that about 1.7 million infections occurred in the United States in 2002. More than 30% MRSA cases of total number of Staphyllococcus infections are in Europe. Several newly discovered strains of MRSA show antibiotic resistance even to vancomycin and teicoplanin. These new evolutions of the MRSA bacterium are called Vancomycin intermediate-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VISA). There have been claims that bacteriophage can be used to cure MRSA.