SKIN INFECTION FACT OF COUNTY JAIL LIFE EFFORTS NOW AIM TO CONTROL, NOT ERADICATE, OUTBREAKS IN INMATES.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

Incidents of a potentially fatal skin infection continue to plague the county jail system, but authorities say they have measures in place to control the problem.

In the first nine months of this year, the county jails, including the Pitchess complex in Castaic, had 2,428 incidents of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. That puts the jail system on pace to match last year's total of about 3,200 cases.

Prior to this year, the incidents of MRSA infection in the jails increased every year since health authorities first became aware of the problem in 2002.

``Now that it has become endemic throughout the community, the goal is no longer to completely eradicate it in the jail,'' said Elizabeth Bancroft, an epidemiologist with the county's public health division.

``I think that will be almost impossible as long as it stays in the community, because then it just keeps getting reintroduced into the jail,'' she said.

At the Pitchess Detention Center, there were 461 cases of MRSA through September, officials said. That's down slightly from the first nine months of 2004, when there were 471 incidents.

The jail complex has signs up inside its various facilities warning inmates of the dangers of MRSA and showing graphic pictures of what the skin infection looks like.

``We really don't seem to have too much of it up here,'' said sheriff's Cmdr. Don Rodriguez, who runs the complex.

Inmates get two pairs of socks, underwear and T-shirts twice a week, and they are encouraged to shower. Last week, the jail complex had more than 30 infected inmates in a special dorm for the treatment of MRSA, Rodriguez said.

MRSA is a kind of staph infection that is resistant to a certain class of antibiotics, said Nina Harawa, an epidemiologist with the Sheriff's Department.

It's possible that the MRSA infections in the jails could become resistant to the kinds of antibiotics health authorities have used against it. That would require a more aggressive approach to dealing with the problem, which could include the more expensive and longer-lasting intravenous treatment method.

``We haven't seen it, but in some settings there is some resistance that is already emerging that has been documented in the literature,'' Harawa said.

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