Law enforcement authorities have issued a response to reports of serious infection at the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) West Valley station in Reseda.
The diagnoses of the officers involved have not been released due to patient privacy laws. “Because of [HIPAA] all we can say is there were health concerns and we have dealt with it,” LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein told local news station KTLA. The statement, released on Tuesday, read:
The health, safety, and wellbeing of our Los Angeles Police Department officers is critical and we are ensuring the officers exposed to this disease are cared for. First responders throughout the region and especially here in Los Angeles are constantly responding to incidents that put them at risk of potential exposure to various diseases, and that’s why the Department takes this incident very seriously. All of the work areas that may have been exposed have been disinfected.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a dangerous staph infection from bacteria typically found on the skin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that, while “staph bacteria are usually harmless,” they can “cause serious infections that can lead to sepsis or death.” MRSA is a variant that has developed resistance to antibiotics, making it exceptionally dangerous.