Two staph cases at Post Office

The T-G received a call Thursday from a concerned citizen who claimed that Shelbyville's postmaster Larry Ellis was allowing a postal employee with a staph infection to continue to work, possibly exposing the public to the bug.

Ellis said that was simply not the case, but did confirm their facility had reported two cases of the disease.

The person with the more recent case of staph just returned after being off for nearly three weeks. The person in question has been cleared to work by their doctor and is taking antibiotics.

The first case was in May 2006, Ellis said, when a postal employee became infected and was immediately taken off the job for two day until receiving a clean bill of health from their doctor.

"I don't want anyone in here with any type of infection," Ellis said.

The employee returned to work but had to leave their job two more times after the infection returned. Ellis said the staph infection would get under control and then reoccur because the MRSA was moving through the person's bloodstream to different parts of their body.

The doctors have since released the worker in question, who has not had a reoccurrence since then and is working at the post office today.

"When a person is diagnosed as infected, they're off work," Ellis stated. "Their doctor has to clear them before they come back."

After the first infection occurred, Ellis said they stepped up cleaning the postal facility with bleach, which they had been doing two to three times a week since 9/11. Any surfaces that were to be touched were disinfected.

Since the first infection, the Shelbyville facility has been taking further steps by spraying an anti-bacterial solution on all surfaces every day, Ellis said.

Ellis also said there was no way to tell how a worker could become infected, suggesting it could have come from a piece of mail and entered the body through a paper cut, or they may have been infected outside the post office.

MRSA is the acronym for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus.

While skin infections start from a cut or scrape, if staphylococcus bacteria gets into the body through a break in the skin it can cause a staph infection, which can spread to other people through skin to skin contact from shared items like bedding, towels, soap, and clothes.

Most medical professionals say the best way to prevent the infections is to simply wash your hands regularly.

The infection is becoming harder to treat and has become resistant to penicillin and other antibiotics. As a result, skin infections from staph can develop into serious, even life-threatening situations, such as infections of the blood, bones and heart.

MRSA infection usually occur in hospitals and nursing homes, where people are recovering from surgery. However, more cases are appearing among people of all ages. Common skin infections caused by staph are boils, impetigo (described as blisters with fluid that pop and get a yellow crust) and infected hair roots.

All postal employees are briefed to wash their hands frequently using an alcohol based solution, Ellis said. He added that a person with the infection could mail a letter and that the postal employee could catch it through a small cut.

"They understand that the mail is dirty. There's no telling who has handled it," Ellis said.

Some postal employees also wear gloves by choice and have done so since the anthrax scare following the Sept. 11 attacks Many more began to wear them since news of the staph outbreaks became public.

If someone does have staph, Ellis said, they wouldn't be working there, "because I don't want my wife and grandkids to get it."