Plan to halve MRSA cases by 2008 is probably not achievable, memo says

The government will fail to meet its pledge of halving the numbers of serious infections of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in UK hospitals by next year, says a memo leaked from the Department of Health.

The memo also says that the target may prove unachievable and that “a certain level of MRSA is unavoidable and we don't know what that level is.”

It discusses how the government might avoid the resulting flak and find its way out of trouble. And it warns that another potentially deadly bacterial infection, Clostridium difficile, which causes around 50 000 infections and around 1000 deaths …