Possible MRSA Case at Burnt Hills High School

A student at Burnt Hills High School could be the latest local student to come down with MRSA, the staph infection that resists anti-biotics.

As a result, the school superintendent decided to have the district's school buses cleaned, following instructions from the Saratoga County Health Department.

Cleaning crews used a mixture of water and bleach to wipe down the seats, steering wheels and hand rails.

Superintendent Jim Schultz tells CBS 6 a student was sent home after she told school officials she had an infection that could be MRSA.

"We felt because of the publicity we're seeing, the heightened awareness across the nation, that we would take a lot of proactive steps and then took some extra precautions," said Schultz. "In transportation, we immediately had the bus that the student had come to school on disinfected. We actually have an extra crew coming on tonight and they're going to go through and disinfect the whole fleet."

According to the Mayo Clinic, about a third of the population carries staphylococcus bacteria on the skin and in the nose - and these are healthy people.

Even when the bacteria enters the body through a cut, it often causes only minor skin infections, but sometimes those ordinary staph infections can lead to MRSA, the more serious illness that killed one student in Virginia this week.