I am not totally sure, but I think the first reported case of MRSA was in 1961 in England. There is a VRSA (scary) that came up in Japan in the mid 90's.

At one time they said MRSA was limited to places like hospitals and ICU wards. I think it is sometimes refered to as the superbug.

It is all over the place now, though and has been classified as hospital acquired and community acquired. Prevalent in places like prisons and sports complexes and probably anywhere that is crowded and provides a good environment for it to survive.

I read a story about a guy that kept getting sick and finally figured out that this MRSA was in his house. They washed everything...did'nt work, he got sick again. They threw out furniture beds,etc. and bought new stuff...got sick again. Eventually they sold the house....cause he kept having this stuff reaquire.

This superbug made the front page of our newspaper several years ago for 1 day and then vanished.....never heard anything about it in the mainstream media again. It was like someone quashed publication of such to prevent panic. I do notice huge bulletins in the Doctors side of our university hospital hallways about MRSA....When I say huge bulletins...I mean 4 foot by 8 foot graphs and charts and different treatments for the stuff. From what I have heard there is only a handful of drugs that they can use to kill this stuff and it is feared that when the staph builds up immunity to it we will have VRSA. Last I heard nothing kills that stuff.