Drug-resistant staph can spread easily in household environments

Once rare, the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infects hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. each year and kills about 20,000. Antibiotic overuse has made MRSA more common and difficult to treat because of the bacteria's contagiousness coupled with its resistance to standard infection-fighting drugs. Infected individuals also face a high risk of recurrence.