Old Form of CA-MRSA Is Back, but Worse
United Press International, April 1, 2005

BATH, England, Apr 01, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- British researchers said an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that caused a global infection epidemic in the 1950s has re-emerged as a community-acquired superbug.

International researchers led by the University of Bath, writing in the Lancet, said this could mean community-acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or CA MRSA will spread faster and be more widespread than previously expected.
First isolated in Australia and Canada in 1953, type 80/81 penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria caused skin lesions, sepsis and pneumonia in children and young adults until it was stopped in the 1960s by the antibiotic methicillin.

Researchers said a new version of 80/81 resistant to methicillin antibiotics may have evolved from the earlier strain.

The researchers sequenced key genes from saved 80/81 samples and compared them with the same regions in genes from most common CA MRSAs found in England and Scotland. Key regions in nearly all of the 80/81 isolates were identical and shared the same highly-virulent toxin, called Panton-Valentine leucocidin