At Kansas University’s Watkins Health Center, MRSA staph diagnoses are a regular occurrence, at least “several a month,” in fact.

Students who come in are treated with special antibiotics and then advised to rest while the infection dissipates. So far, no one at KU has been hospitalized because of an encounter with Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or drug-resistant staph infection, but in other areas people have not been so fortunate.

At Iona College in New York, nine athletes and a coach contracted the serious infection, as did a public school teacher in Indianapolis. And in the Piper school district in Wyandotte County, a football player was found to have contracted MRSA.

This comes a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the disease is far more prevalent than ever thought, accounting for 94,000 life-threatening infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the United State in 2005.

“MRSA staph infections are fairly common (today),” said Patricia Denning, chief of staff at Watkins. “In the past, MRSA was felt to be confined to seriously ill patients who have been hospitalized. In recent years, it’s moved out of the hospital and into the community.”

Tricia Thomann, infection control practitioner at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said the hospital typically sees a number of cases of MRSA. She said of the outpatient staph cultures performed by the hospital, about half show the person has MRSA.

Denning said patients at KU most often come in complaining of a particularly painful spider bite. In reality, however, the “spider bite” is actually a boil infected with MRSA. Treatment includes opening and draining the boil and then providing the patient with a high-powered antibiotic.

Denning said that MRSA can be shared by wearing the same clothes as another person, sharing towels or washcloths or even razor blades. She suggested washing hands and encouraging roommates and friends to cover their mouths and noses when they cough or sneeze as ways to keep bacteria away.

At the KU athletic department, players and coaches are frighteningly familiar with MRSA. Former basketball player Christian Moody contracted the virus in the 2004-2005 season and missed several games. In the past three years, associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said, the athletic department has made staph a point of emphasis for student-athletes, coaches and staff.

“We’ve been doing a lot of education,” he said. “We educate the student-athletes and training staff on how to recognize staph infections.”

He said hand sanitizer stations have been installed throughout the department, and it is forbidden to share towels, water bottles or clothing of any kind.

Lawrence’s public schools so far have avoided MRSA infections.

Sonja Gaumer, Lawrence public schools facilitator for health services, said school nurses are not aware of any student cases.

This week, members of the custodial staff were getting a reminder about cleaning procedures, particularly using their approved disinfectant to kill staph, said Tom Bracciano, the district’s division director for operations and facility planning.

The custodians disinfect hard surfaces, including doorknobs, faucets, restrooms, showers, and restroom and shower room floors, he said.

KU’s Denning said MRSA became a problem because patients think antibiotics are the key to treating any illness. In many cases, illness is caused by viruses, which don’t respond to antibiotics.

“It’s not appropriate for people to expect physicians to be giving them antibiotics for the common cold,” Denning said. “They need to stay home and let their immune systems clear the bacteria out of their system.”

Denning cited mononucleosis as a good example of a viral infection that people often want treated with antibiotics.

Overuse of antibiotics, she said, can often lead to bacteria becoming resistant to standard treatments, as MRSA has become.