London, Jan 7(ANI): People suffering from MRSA, a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans can be treated at home with antibiotics and can also reduce the lavish cost of the treatment, says experts.

Professor Mark Wilcox, an expert in microbiology at the University of Leeds, said that treating people at home would give enormous benefits.

“Treating people with MRSA at home offers multiple benefits in terms of infection control, and reducing NHS costs and resource use, BBC quoted Wilcox, as saying.

The report suggested that in many cases people who are given MRSA treatment in hospital were otherwise medically fit and could be given antibiotics, probably by nurses, at home, once the infection left their bloodstream.

The report also added that treating MRSA at home would even cut the annual 1bn pounds cost of treatment.

MRSA infections can cause a wide range of symptoms depending upon the part of the body that is infected including surgical wounds, burns, catheter sites, the eye, skin and blood.

“Many patients would also prefer to be discharged from hospital to be with their families while they finish their treatment, and they should be given that option, where possible,” said Wilcox.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has guaranteed that all patients entering NHS hospitals in England would be examined for MRSA and Clostridium difficile, a species of bacteria responsible for severe colon infection.

Hospital-acquired infections was an “absolute priority” and a programme of deep cleaning in hospitals had begun, he said.

However, the Conservatives dismissed his plans as “one-off gimmicks” and proposed financial penalties for English hospitals for each patient contracting the bacterium.

British Medical Association insists that the plan would daunt the hospitals from treating the most vulnerable patients with the bacterium.

The latest data of MRSA infections in England revealed that there were 1,303 cases April and June last year as compared to 1,447 between January and March. (ANI)