Almost one third of everyone in the United States has a germ living on their skin called staphylococcus - - that's according to the CDC. And while most of the time, the germ is harmless - - sometimes it can lead to an infection that calls for a trip to the emergency room.
14-year old Brandon Williams got a boil in his ear - - and went to the ER - - where the Doctor says it's most likely a tough germ called MRSA.
Dr. David Goo says, "We've been seeing a lot of kids that have staph infections come in and about 80 percent of those children have Methicillin resistant staph aureous." Dr. Goo also says that often, people who have on staph infection will get another. "That's called colonization. That means that the staph is living on your skin all the time and just waiting until something gets inflamed or you get bitten by a mosquito and you scratch it and then it can enter into the skin and cause an infection."
The best prevention, according to Dr. Goo, is good hygiene. "Always washing your hands, washing your clothes in hot water, never sharing clothes, never sharing towels, never sharing things that you would put on your body and that way you'll prevent yourself from getting the staph infections."
