by Pat Peterson
Published: Wed, August 27, 2008 - 5:36 pm CST
A football player at Spanish Fort High School has been diagnosed with staph infection. School officials say the teen was also diagnosed with the same infection last year.
"The student is under a doctor's care this week and is not in school," says Baldwin County Board of Education spokesman Terry Wilhite. "This student does have the MRSA strand, which is contagious and has been deadly before."
Wilhite says coaches are scrubbing down locker rooms, field houses and athletic facilities.
"Our coaches always try to keep locker rooms clean, but we're taking precautions now."
Staph is contagious and can be spread through the air, on the skin and by touching contaminated surfaces. Health experts urge children to wash their hands on a regular basis, cover cuts and scrapes with band-aids and not to share athletic clothes and sports equipment.
Symptoms of staph infection include skin blisters and red rashes. In some cases, staph infection can be deadly.
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