Drug-resistant superbugs, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant form of the bacterium S. aureus, continue to pose a major danger across the United States, with new federal data highlighting the burden of potentially deadly pathogens that can evade the medicines commonly used to treat them. CDC data reveals significant differences in the number of drug-resistant MRSA infections recorded across U.S. states in 2024. The map shows where the largest numbers were reported, with California recording 540, Pennsylvania 385 and Texas 270.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies MRSA as a “serious threat” requiring “prompt and sustained action.” It estimates that, in 2023, it caused 220,997 cases among hospitalized patients, 7,499 associated deaths, more than $1.55 billion in healthcare costs. About 40 to 50 percent of infections in hospitals are caused by MRSA. The CDC says that MRSA is especially difficult to control because S. aureus usually lives on the skin or inside the nose without causing any signs of illness.
Around one in three people carries ordinary S. aureus, while approximately two in every 100 carries MRSA. The bacteria can cause infections if they enter the body through broken skin, wounds or medical devices. Unlike ordinary staph (the general term for Staphylococcus bacteria), MRSA has developed resistance to several antibiotics, making infections harder to treat.
This type of resistance, often referred to as antimicrobial resistance, develops when bacteria or fungi gain the ability to survive medicines designed to kill them. Resistant organisms can then multiply, potentially making infections harder or, in extreme cases, impossible to treat. Most staph infections are comparatively minor skin infections, but MRSA can infect the blood, lungs, bones, skin, soft tissue, and other parts of the body.
Serious complications include pneumonia, bloodstream infections and sepsis, the body’s extreme response to infection. Untreated infections can be fatal. Americans can be exposed to MRSA both inside and outside hospitals.
Of the CDC’s estimated hospitalized MRSA cases in 2023, 16 percent were classified as hospital-onset and 84 percent as community-onset, although some community-onset patients may previously have received healthcare or lived in nursing homes. Unlike MRSA, which is a bacterium, C. auris is a fungus. Carbapenem-resistant organisms are bacteria that resist carbapenems, powerful antibiotics often reserved for severe infections, while drug-resistant gonorrhea threatens the shrinking number of medicines available to treat a common sexually transmitted infection.
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