ADAORA UDOJI:

Last week, Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr., revealed a staph infection sent him to the Cleveland Clinic for three days. And he then accused the Browns of asking him to cover it up.

This year, a staph infection has sidelined New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady who was in the hospital for knee surgery. In 2003, an outbreak of staph infections or other kinds of related infections in the Rams' locker room triggered major concerns. It's a disturbing trend, affecting not only Major League football players across the league, but up to 15 million Americans a year.

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Jeff Hageman joins us now. Good morning, Doctor.

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

Good morning.

ADAORA UDOJI:

So how would you describe what you're seeing?

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

So staph infections, they're very common. So you mentioned there was around 15 million suspected staph, and these were skin infections typically in, in the general community, that we see. So, you know, they're very common. It's a very common bacteria. We find staph on one out of every three people in the country. Usually we see it in our — our noses.

So when we get breaks in the skin, like football players do, like people do when they undergo surgery, staph can get into those areas and cause infection. And so that's what we typically see out in the general population.

In hospitals, we see more severe infections happen and, and usually those are caused by the drug-resistant type of staph infection called MRSA. And so, those are usually in people who have a lot of underlying health conditions, and they tend to get the more severe infections, the bloodstream infections, the pneumonias.

ADAORA UDOJI:

So are you seeing a greater incidence of it, or is it just more public when we're talking about very well known athletes?

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

I think it's a little of both. I think before we saw the emergence of the drug-resistant form in the community, most people didn't take m — didn't take notice of staph infections and, and it was really the, the resistance component that brought people's attention and, and also some of these high profile outbreaks like you mentioned in, in the Rams back in 2003.

ADAORA UDOJI:

So, I mean, obviously football players aren't the only ones who are — are in locker rooms and where it's humid and they're — it's a contact sport. I mean, there are certainly others. What is so specific, do you think, that's happening in that environment that, that's triggering greater inciden — incidences of it?

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

So I think athletes are at risk in a couple of different ways. One is they typically undergo, you know, a number of surgeries if they get injured. And so, they could get it from that hospital environment associated with those surgeries.

However, they could also pick it up out in the general community, whether they pick it up from a teammate that has an infection and they come into contact with that infection on the playing field or in the locker room, or they can pick it up, just as well, from a family member or just being out in the, in the general population.

So what we see in athletes are typically outbreaks can occur in these situations, not only in the athletic setting but the daycares, in prisons, in military recruits. So staph likes to be transmitted through that close personal contact, whether it's direct skin-to-skin contact, like you would see in linemen on a football field, or whether it's sharing of personal items like razors or towels, where the bacteria can be put on for a short period of time and then passed between people.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Doctor, in, in a place like the NFL, this is a million-dollar, multi-million-dollar issue because you've got, you know, Tom Brady, who may actually be lost for two seasons as a result of something like this. I'm wondering if — and I, I read this somewhere — that athletes, particularly professional athletes are notoriously bad patients, that they don't, you know, take the full regime of antibiotics, and they typically sort of macho their way through the therapy and maybe aren't as careful as some others?

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

You know, I'm not sure if that, that's the case. You know, when we went in to the Rams, you would think at a p — at the professional level they have all of the resources available to handle many of these situations. And, and we went — when we went in and investigated the Rams' organization, there really wasn't anything that stood out as, as doing anything inappropriately.

You know, the — the big issue we find in many of these situations is that because many of these start out as just skin infections —they may look like a pimple — you know, that that's not something that people are going to take notice of, especially these professional athletes that are getting banged up week after week. So it — they, they have these infections and then they tend to have them longer, and that allows for more transmission in, in these, in these situations.

And so, really the critical key for, you know, whether you're an athlete or whether you're just, you know, out in the general public is making sure you understand what the signs and symptoms are so that you can take the action of covering that, so you don't pass it to other people or spread it on your own body, and then getting treatment quickly, rather than waiting for it to become more severe.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Last question: If avoiding a staph infection is fairly simple, do you want to lay it out for us?

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

Sure. Because staph is on us, that, you know, clean hands and covering wounds are really the critical ways to, to prevent staph from being spread, and just overall hygiene. You know, keeping cuts and scrapes covered so that that prevents them from being infected, as well as hygiene measures — cleaning your hands regularly, washing your clothing, you know, those simple things that we've learned ever since we were little children.

ADAORA UDOJI:

Dr. Jeff Hageman, thank you for joining us.

DR. JEFF HAGEMAN:

Thank you.