School sanitizes after staph infection

RICHMOND, Ind. – Crews worked to disinfect Richmond High School’s locker rooms and gymnasium after a student developed a staph infection possibly from the same antibiotic-resistant strain blamed for the death of a Virginia student this week.\nAthletic director Chris Rodal said the case was “athletic-oriented” and all of the locker rooms in Tiernan Center were cleaned Wednesday night. Student athletes took their uniforms home to launder them, Rodal said.\nRichmond Community Schools Superintendent Allen Bourff said other areas of the high school also were disinfected.\nOfficials were awaiting results of a culture test that would verify whether the strain was Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, he said.\n“It’s not been confirmed, but we have been acting on this as if it were confirmed,” Bourff said Thursday.\nThe Richmond student, a senior whose identify was not released, was diagnosed with the infection Tuesday and has been under a physician’s care, Bourff said.\nIn Bedford, Va., a high school student died Monday after being hospitalized for more than a week with an MRSA strain of staph.\nMRSA does not respond to penicillin and related antibiotics but can be treated with other drugs. The infection can be spread by skin-to-skin contact or sharing an item used by an infected person, particularly one with an open wound. The MRSA strain and other staph infections have spread through schools nationwide in recent weeks, health and education officials have said.\nBourff said he was confident that precautions at the high school about 70 miles east of Indianapolis would prevent the infection’s spread.\nFreshman Michael Lydick estimated more than a quarter of his classmates were gone before the school day ended on Wednesday.\nLydick said he made it to the end of the day, but would’ve gone home if he had been able to contact his parents. He said he felt “nervous and kind of scared” after school officials announced the infection on \nWednesday.\nDetails on Thursday’s attendance at the 1,600-student school were not immediately available.