Posted on Wed, Apr. 13, 2005 Jail guards being tested for antibiotic-resistant infection JOE MANDAK Associated Press PITTSBURGH -Four Allegheny County Jail guards were to be tested for the same antibiotic-resistant infection that killed two female inmates last month.

But Warden Ramon Rustin and county health officials said there's no indication anybody else is sick with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and on Tuesday they discounted letters written by another inmate warning of widespread staph infections as early as December..

County Coroner Cyril Wecht originally said the inmates died March 21 of fumes released by a mix of cleaning chemicals. But later tests showed they died of the infection, which is known as MSRA..

Chuck Mandarino, president of the local guard's union, said two of four guards who have been sick off-and-on since they came in contact with the women were tested Tuesday. The other two will be tested soon, and results are expected in a few days..

"I have four officers that say they were working in the vicinity and developed some symptoms, flu-like symptoms. I think they're concerned that it could be related" to the deaths of inmates Valeriya Whetsell, 50, and Amy Sartori, 21, both of Pittsburgh, Rustin said..

Rustin said, however, that the jail is studying how to better clean cells and make sure linens and inmate clothing are cleaner and exchanged more frequently, among other improvements..

Inmate Keith Maydak said he requested such changes when he wrote to jail, state and county health officials in December, claiming that inmate clothes and linens aren't changed often enough and that "15 inmates per day" were infected. Maydak told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he meant to write "15 per week," but otherwise stood by his assertions..

"It appears the outbreak is the result of the jail administration's practices with regard to clothing," Maydak wrote. Inmates get one pair of pants and one overshirt upon arrival, but it takes about three weeks to get a second set. Inmates can only wash one set of uniforms each week, Maydak said..

Maydak's attorney, Peter Zahn of San Diego, said he wrote a similar letter in late January after Maydak's was "ignored.".

Rustin and Cole said those letters were discounted, in part, because Maydak has a history of filing grievances and lawsuits - "his file is several inches thick," Rustin said - and because Zahn's letter raised several other Maydak grievances before mentioning the infections..

Discovered in the last decade, MRSA can cause abscesses and boils, sometimes results in pneumonia or flu-like symptoms, and isn't easily treated with antibiotics. MSRA was once thought to be mostly confined to hospitals and jails. But researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week about one in five cases out of more than 12,000 studied in Baltimore, Atlanta and Minnesota was transmitted in the community at large..

"Our new study confirms what we've been hearing anecdotally from public health departments across the country," said CDC spokeswoman Jennifer Morcone. "Community associated MRSA is on the rise.".

Morcone said the CDC is consulting health departments across the country about making MRSA a reportable disease, like hepatitis or HIV, because of a marked rise in infections nationwide..

Officials in Santa Clara County, Calif., say they've seen 606 cases in the first three months of this year, compared to 1,397 cases last year..

And MRSA has ravaged other jails, too. Two inmates of the Calhoun County Jail in Battle Creek, Mich., died March 1. Officials at the Dallas County (Texas) Jail reported 700 cases among inmates in one recent three-month period and say some 120 county sheriff's employees have been sickened since 2002..

In Pennsylvania, a federal judge recently upheld a $1.2 million verdict for two former Bucks County inmates in an outbreak that spawned 13 lawsuits and infected more than 30 inmates, guards, and family members since 2001..

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