Warning: New Killer Superbug Spreading
Alarming new forms of the MRSA superbug are emerging that can kill people who have never even been in hospital.
The bacteria cause death by attacking the immune system and destroying lung tissue.
Worryingly, sufferers do not show any symptoms of being infected.
By the time a diagnosis is made, it can be too late to save the patient.
Dr Marina Morgan, from the Royal Devon & Exeter Foundation NHS Trust, said: "The new community-associated MRSA strains appear to be more virulent and more easily spread between people.
"These community-associated versions have been found in people with few, if any, reasons to have MRSA.
"Typically they haven't recently been in hospital, or are not looking after or living with people with MRSA."
MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a common bug carried by millions of people that has mutated to become immune to many antibiotics.
If it gets into the bloodstream it can kill.
MRSA is now starting to spread from hospitals to the wider population - community MRSA is now well established in the US, where it is a major cause of childhood infection.
Doctors are worried about the same pattern being repeated in Britain.
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