In path breaking research, scientists from Britain's Bath, Oxford and London and Portugal, Thailand and the United States came together at the University of Cambridge to discover a revolutionary method for precisely tracking the spread of MRSA from country to country, patient to patient. The technique involves the usage of DNA mapping technology in studying the genome of the bacteria.

This study would now help scientists and medical practitioners to better understand the spread and of the super bug, whether the bacteria is being transmitted as a result of inner hospital infections or its coming in from the outside.

By comparing samples of patients from various parts of the world, the team appeared to have reached the conclusion that MRSA originated in Europe in the early 1960s as a result of the first large scale usage of anti-biotic.

According to Dr. Shannon Peacock of Cambridge University, "Our research should inform global surveillance strategies to track the spread of MRSA. The implications for public health are clear: this technology represents the potential to trace transmission pathways of MRSA more definitively so that interventions or treatments can be targeted with precision and according to need".