By Karen Williamson

KARENW@CULLMANTIMES.COM

A Fairview High School and Elementary School mother says staph infections at the school are still active and is concerned a child may die.

Michelle Roden’s older son came down with a staph infection on Aug. 27. Last week, her 7-year-old son was treated for a staph infection.

“My little 7-year-old came home last week,” she said. “He had a white pimple on his cheek, and I knew what that was. It was staph.”

This week her 10-year-old son was diagnosed with a type of staph infection called infantigo — also referred to as impetigo — and treated at Cullman Regional Medical Center.

Fairview High School Principal Stanley Burden told The Times Wednesday the staph infections at the high school were cleared up. He was not aware that Roden had two sons with a current infection.

“Mr. Burden was not aware of my son’s outbreak,” said Roden. “I just want them to realize it’s not cleared up.”

Roden said she contacted the Cullman County Board of Education and spoke with Ginger Hogeland who is in charge of Public Relations.

Roden said Hogeland told her school officials would shut the school down if necessary and call in Servpro to clean the school. Hogeland did not immediately return a call from The Times.

County Superintendent Hank Allen said he would take whatever steps were necessary to deal with the situation including shutting down the school system if necessary.

“We don’t want to see anyone, especially a student, die from this,” said Allen. “Also, we don’t need to set off an alarm.”

Allen said he has not received information about a widespread outbreak.

“We are dealing with it as we receive information,” he said.

A Virginia high school student was hospitalized for more than a week with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection and died on Monday. After a student protest, officials shut down 21 schools for cleaning to keep the illness from spreading.

The student had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA, which is resistant to certain antibiotics including methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most staph infections occur among persons in hospitals and healthcare facilities.

Staph or MRSA infections in the community can first appear on the skin as pimples or boils, according to the CDC. It can be spread by skin-to-skin contact or by touching contaminated surfaces.

Prevention includes good hand washing and cleaning of household surfaces, and people should not take antibiotics unless seen by a physician who has determined a bacterial infection is present.