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Third Annual MRSA Day set to kick off

Oct. 1 marks the Third Annual World MRSA Day and Global MRSA Summit, and this year’s theme is, “The MRSA Epidemic – A Call to Action.”

“The community and health care industry are uniting together to raise awareness of the worldwide MRSA epidemic,” said Jeanine Thomas, founder of World MRSA Day and MRSA Survivors Network.

The annual kickoff event will take place at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill., and William R. Jarvis, MD, formerly of the CDC, is the keynote speaker.

The organization’s founder said in a press release that WHO must “immediately take a leadership position through the development and implementation of a worldwide MRSA surveillance and reporting system. Such a system would facilitate the collection of data on MRSA infections and colonization. The public release of such data would illustrate the true magnitude of the MRSA pandemic worldwide and facilitate the implementation of evidence-based prevention interventions that are so desperately needed.”

The CDC estimated that approximately 18,000 people die of invasive MRSA health care-associated infections each year in the United States.

For more information and to view a broadcast of the event, visit www.worldmrsaday.org and www.MRSAsurvivors.org.

Disclosure: The event is being sponsored by Tec Labs, Roche, Pfizer, Loyola University Health System and media sponsor NBC Chicago.

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