WHAT IS MYSA STAPH INFECTION

It's called MRSA: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Occasional MRSA outbreaks have been pestering hospitals for years. Now, new and nasty MRSA strains are popping up outside of hospitals - often in otherwise healthy children and adults.

Two bits of good news: The vast majority of MRSA cases are mild skin infections. And while it shrugs off the antibiotics usually used to treat staph, other antibiotics do kill the bug -- at least for the time being.

The bad news is that some of these infections are very serious. The scariest and potentially most life-threatening are the "flesh-eating" bacterial infections doctors call necrotizing fasciitis. There are also deadly cases of pneumonia in people weakened by flu. And sooner or later, experts fear, MRSA will develop resistance to other antibiotics as well.

MRSA is contagious and can be spread to other people through skin-to-skin contact. If one person in a family is infected with MRSA, the rest of the family may get it.