It wasn’t your usual high school rumor, but it spread like an infectious disease through the halls of King’s Fork High School this week.

“A student had MRSA,” the whispers said. “That was why all the equipment in the weight room was cleaned.”

In truth, Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw said, there was no confirmed case of MRSA — an abbreviation for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an infection that can be spread by skin-to-skin contact and can cause chest pain, cough or shortness of breath, fatigue, fever, headache, rash and wounds that do not heal, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Even so, the school took precautions with some additional cleaning, Bradshaw said, which likely lent more credibility to the rumor.

She added that families would be notified if a case of MRSA were confirmed in the school.