Each year, children visit doctors offices and emergency rooms over 2 million times due to skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs). These SSTIs are usually caused by a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and can result in severe negative consequences such as hospitalization, disability, and even death. Despite treatment with antibiotics, 20-70% of children with an SSTI will develop a recurrent infection within the next year. Additionally, this treatment fails to eradicate S. aureus from children nearly 50% of the time. Of the types of S. aureus that cause these infections, antibiotic-resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), which are associated with higher rates of transmission, have become increasingly more common. Thus, the problem of interest is the high rate of recurrent SSTIs in children caused by S. aureus despite the use of systemic antibiotic treatment, due to difficulties in decolonization and the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant strains such as MRSA.
