A new study has warned that normal staph infections or strains that are not drug-resistant seemed to be as big of a threat as superbugs in infants, even though in this age group bloodstream infections are rare.

On last October 19, researchers reported in JAMA Pediatrics that they have discovered that regular staph was still as dangerous, which means an individual has to be alert even for garden-variety infections among infants.

Dr. P. Brian Smith of the Duke University School of Medicine and his colleagues scrutinized the mortality of infants with methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and the superbug methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). MSSA killed and infected more babies than the MRSA in all the birth weight categories at 348 neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) around the United States.

The study concluded that the total numbers of infections and deaths caused due to MSSA were more than those due to MRSA. It has recommended that hospital infection control measures for MRSA should include MSSA also.

Study found that out of 887,910 babies, 3,888 were discovered with MSSA whereas 1,110 had MRSA. The study suggested that there were 44.8 MSSA infections for every 10,000 babies, and the incidence kept on increasing from 1997 to 2006 and modestly declined from 2007 to 2012.

MSSA killed more babies than MRSA, though the numbers were same at 237 cases (10% of cases) for MSSA and 110 (12%) for MRSA.

Furthermore, the study has also shown that there were probably more chances that invasive staph infections would affect infants who were born at less than 3.3 pounds than the ones who weighed heavier at the time of taking birth.