A treatment which may see MRSA being cured in patients and being driven from Irish hospitals is being investigated by a team of scientists working at the Teagasc science and research centre at Moorepark, Fermoy, Co Cork.
Already the research group has made a major breakthrough in the battle against methicillin-resistant stahpylococcus aureus (MRSA) by identifying for the first time a phage, which is a virus that infects bacterial cells and can destroy them.
The particular phage concerned, Phage K, has the capacity to kill a wide range of pathogenic staphylococci. Niamh McNamara, one of the team working on the project, says work is proceeding to amend it so it can have practical application.
"This bacterial virus is very effective and can destroy high numbers of MRSA in a matter of hours but the problem is to get it to a stage where it can be absorbed into the bloodstream so it can cure patients suffering from the infection." Ms McNamara is a Walsh Fellow from Ennis, Co Clare.
She says that part of the problem with the virus is that it cannot be dissolved and that the human immune system would reject it in its current form before it could get to a stage where it would attack the MRSA.
"What we are trying to do is to amend it so it could be used intravenously or as a cream which could be used on the hands of staff, which would stop the spread of the disease."
Frontline antibiotics are useless against infections caused by MRSA, Ms McNamara adds, and the work being carried out at Moorepark and at the Cork Institute of Technology could be of immense value in the fight against MRSA.
Details of the research formed part of yesterday's Moorepark 07 event in Fermoy when Teagasc put on display all its research work for the public.