Celebrity health: Leslie Ash launches legal battle over MRSA
So severe was the infection that Ash was temporarily left without feeling below the waist.
Mistakingly believing that she was a victim of domestic violence, the police even arrested her husband. Today, she has yet to fully recover and continues to rely on a walking stick.
MRSA, short for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), is a strain of the staphylococcus aureus bacteria that is immune to the broad-spectrum antibiotics commonly used to treat bacterial infections.
Staphylococcus bacteria are present on the skin or in the nose in one in three of us. Most people show no ill effects; they are said to be ‘colonised' but not infected. It is possible to be colonised by MRSA and remain perfectly healthy.
Problems arise, however, when staphylococcus bacteria enter the body of people with weakened immune systems, such as the elderly or those who are ill.
In recent years, an even more deadly type of MRSA has emerged. Known as community-associated MRSA, it can result in serious skin infections and a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.
Generally, an MRSA infection will resemble a small red boil bump that may be mistaken for a boil or spider bite.
In just a short period of time, it can transform into a painful, puss-filled abscess that requires draining.
In the worst-case scenario, the bacteria may fully penetrate the skin, inflicting life-threatening damage on bones, joints, the heart, lungs or bloodstream.
There's a perfectly simple explanation for super bugs. They are a result of excessive and unnecessary antibiotic use.
For decades, antibiotics have been prescribed inappropriately for colds, flus and other viral infections – conditions which, in the normal course of events, clear on their own.
As is well known here in Ireland, hospitals can be a breeding ground for MRSA, where it causes great harm to the most vulnerable: the sick and the old. Newborn babies are at heightened risk, too.
People who work in hospitals, or are in contact with those who do, may also have an increased chance of contracting the bug.
It should be noted that MRSA isn't completely immune to modern medicine. Often, an antibiotic called Vancomycin is employed effectively to counter the bug.
The fear is that as the use of Vancomycin grows more widespread, its effectiveness will diminish.
In such circumstances, the present-day threat posed by MRSA may pale dramatically in comparison to the doomsday scenario that would then await.
