Skin infections take over football team

WOLCOTT, Ind. (WLFI) - Two contagious skin infections have taken over a local high school football team and administrators are doing everything possible to prevent the infections from spreading.

The football pads in the boys locker room at Tri-County High School hang outside the lockers, waiting to be sprayed with bleach water. It's just one of the actions school administrators have taken after nine players were diagnosed with impetigo and one player with ringworm.

Athletic Director Denny Stitz said this isn't the first infection outbreak the school has seen.

"About 5 years ago, we started seeing instances of the MRSA appearing," said Stitz.

Stitz said that's when the school started disinfecting the lockers rooms and weight rooms on a regular basis.

The clean sweep has already started for this time around. He said these next couple of days, custodians will be scrubbing the locker rooms down with a bleach water mix. They will tackle the football pads after that.

"Our plan, weather-permitting, is to actually to submerge the pads in a bleach water concentration and a rinse and then lay them out in the sun," said Stitz.

Stitz said all the kids cover up the infections while they're at school and on the field.

Impetigo is a contagious skin infection which causes red sores that can be filled with pus. Ringworm is a fungus that can cause itchy patches which may blister or ooze.

There will be a football parent meeting Tuesday evening to inform parents about the outbreak and what they need to do to protect their children.

Stitz said with these kind of skin infections, it's hard to figure out where they came from.

"It could be from another school or another locker room, it could be from our locker room, it's very difficult to tell," said Stitz.

News 18 spoke with the team's doctor from Unity Healthcare. He said skin infections are more common among wrestling teams.

However, they can still spread through any contact sport. He said it's important to get them looked at and treated as soon as possible.

Denny Stitz said if more players get ringworm and the risk of spreading it increases, games will be canceled. But right now, the team is still set to play as scheduled.

News 18 called other schools Tri-County has played in the past couple of weeks to see if they've had any issues with skin infections. Those calls were never returned.