SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Two cases of Methicillin-resistant Staphyloccal aureus was confirmed this week in student athletes from Spanish Fort High School.

“We have actually had seven cases in Spanish Fort area all tracking back to the students at the high school,” Baldwin County Schools spokesman Terry Wilhite said Wednesday.

Two confirmed MRSA were reported September and October, and the remaining visible cases were reported in August and October, Wilhite said. Wilhite said, with 27,000 students in the public school system, “one is too many, but it is not a massive outbreak.”

Five of the cases were parent-reported after they took their children to a physician, Wilhite said. The doctor told the parents it was a staph infection from a visible diagnosis, but not from a culture, and was treated accordingly, Wilhite said.

“In two instances, parents have told us that because it did not respond to typical antibiotics, it was cultured and it came back as MRSA. It takes a culture in a lab to determine it it is officially MRSA,” Wilhite said.

All of the incidences involved SFHS football players, he said.

Although the school system has an every day routine of disinfecting field houses, a professional company was brought in to disinfect the field house in Spanish Fort “from stem to stern” this past weekend which was a two day event, Wilhite said.

“We believe the best defense against. staph is a good offense,” Wilhite said.

All Baldwin County public school students received an information sheet to take home to their parents, which included information on what a staph infection is, what should be done and what the school system is doing, Wilhite said.

“The number one goal is to get good information to the parents and there not to be an alarm,” Wilhite said.

He said that the national news media have put a recent focus on MRSA recently, but staph infection has been around for a long time. The principals have already gotten a tremendous response of appreciation from parents about the level of information, he said.

After a mother recently read the information hand-out, Wilhite said there was a case Wednesday morning on the Eastern Shore where a mother thought her child had a bug bite that just wouldn’t heal. She took her son to the doctor and it was discovered to be a staph infection.

All students mentioned did not require hospitalization and are recovering quite well, Wilhite said. If a student has been diagnosed with a staph infection, typically students are held out for as long as the doctor deems necessary, he said. But, Wilhite said any nick, wound or cut should be sufficiently bandaged, wrapped and not exposed.

Wilhite said if parents didn’t get an information sheet, they can log on to the Web site at bcbe.org or can pick up a copy from a school office.

“We had one student with a problem that has been taken care of. Last weekend, we sanitized the entire facility and equipment and we don’t anticipate any other problems,” Principal Michael Lucci said Wednesday.