CLERMONT, Fla. -- Two students at a Central Florida high school have contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria known as MRSA.

The principal at East Ridge High School in Clermont is contacting parents, alerting them of the cases.

The condition of the students is not known.

School officials said the school was being cleaned, but it's not known how the students contracted the potentially life-threatening disease.

Two Central Florida students died last year after contracting MRSA.

MRSA is resistant to certain antibiotics, including methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. Staph infections, including MRSA, occur most frequently among persons in hospitals and healthcare facilities who have weakened immune systems.

MRSA infections that occur in otherwise healthy people who have not been recently hospitalized or had a medical procedure, such as dialysis, surgery and catheters, are known as community-associated (CA)-MRSA infections. These infections are usually skin infections, such as abscesses, boils and other pus-filled lesions.

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