'Superbug': Good News and Bad News

[Acturus]

Good news, everyone! MRSA infection rates are on the decline!

http://www.latimes.com/health/sns-he...,7383950.story

Study: MRSA infections declining
Comprehensive report shows that the number of cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus dropped from 2005 to 2008.

Spoiler: show

Dangerous infections caused by the bacterium methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, appear to be declining in healthcare settings across the nation, the federal government reported Tuesday.

An analysis conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 28% drop in cases of MRSA contracted in hospitals from 2005 to 2008 and a 17% decrease in cases contracted outside the hospital but among people who had had kidney dialysis or had been in a hospital or nursing home in the prior year.

Although it's unclear why healthcare-associated MRSA cases are waning, it's welcome news to hospital administrators and infection-control officials as well as the Department of Health and Human Services, which has declared preventing such infections one of its major objectives.

"We're very happy about this," said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center who directed one of the surveillance sites included in the study. "Hospitals have done a lot over the past decade to make care safer."

MRSA has been the most prominent of the infections that spread easily in hospitals. Though the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium is commonly found on skin and in the nose and is typically harmless, in cases of invasive MRSA — the focus of this study — it spreads to the blood, lungs, soft tissue, bones or joints.

The infection can progress rapidly, and is difficult to treat. An estimated 90,000 MRSA infections linked to healthcare are reported each year in the United States, causing about 15,000 deaths, mostly among older people or people with underlying illnesses.

Stringent infection-control strategies have been implemented in many hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices in the last decade to reduce infection rates. The measures include using routine checklists to ensure sterility, improved hand-washing, cleaning a patient's skin with disinfectant, removing unnecessary catheters and tracking infection rates.

Earlier small studies had hinted that infections were on the downswing. A study published last year found that cases of MRSA linked to catheter insertions in intensive care units had dropped substantially in the last decade, after following strict adherence to infection control procedures. Others have reported falling MRSA rates in Europe.

But the new report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., is the most comprehensive analysis of MRSA trends in the U.S. to date. Using a surveillance system started in 2005, federal health officials gathered data on invasive MRSA from nine metropolitan areas. They found that healthcare-associated infections made up 82% of the 21,503 cases; the others, cases acquired in the community and unrelated to admissions to healthcare facilities, were not analyzed.

"We've seen slow, relentless increases of MRSA over time," said Dr. Alexander J. Kallen, a medical officer at the CDC and lead author of the study. "So we are very encouraged to see a substantial decrease."

Intense focus since 2000 on curbing hospital-acquired infections is probably a big factor in the decline, though it could have something to do with natural changes in the organism that causes it to emerge and then retreat, Kallen said.

The study also found a 19% drop in cases among people undergoing dialysis, a group that is especially vulnerable to MRSA infection, although that occurred from 2007 to 2008, slightly later than hospital rates began to fall. Infection-prevention efforts in outpatient healthcare settings may lag somewhat behind hospital initiatives, Kallen said.

The invasive MRSA problem is not over, University of Iowa infection-control experts emphasized in an editorial accompanying the study, and there are other dangerous bacteria that spread in healthcare settings.

Bad news, everyone! There's a new 'superbug' that's spread from Asia to England and now Australia!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...Y32r6m66wRJM0Q

South Asian 'superbug' spreads to Australia

Spoiler: show

SYDNEY — A drug-resistant "superbug" has infected three Australians who travelled to India, an expert said on Friday, reinforcing fears it could spread worldwide after hitting dozens of people from Britain.

Professor Peter Collignon, Canberra Hospital's head of infectious diseases department, said the cases -- including one patient who had plastic surgery in Mumbai -- were just the "tip of the iceberg".

"There may well be more because it's difficult to pick up this particular gene unless you've got sophisticated testing," Collignon told AFP.

British scientists sparked an angry response from India when they said "medical tourists" to the sub-continent were among 37 people who were found to be carrying bacteria with the New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) gene.

"We strongly refute the naming of the enzyme... and also refute that hospitals in India are not safe for treatment including medical tourism," the Indian health ministry said in a statement.

The gene was identified last year in bacteria carried by a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.

The gene, which is found in a number of different bacteria, produces an enzyme that renders even very strong, last resort antibiotics ineffective in combating the bacteria.

Collignon said he treated one of Australia's three cases in Canberra, while there was one each in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland.

"We found this multi-resistant, untreatable bug in their urine, luckily not causing too many problems to that person. But it's a real problem if it spreads to others," he said.

"The germ we had was untreatable -- there were no drugs we had that could treat it," he added.

Collignon said his patient caught the bug in intensive care in an Indian hospital after plastic surgery went wrong. But he said one of the three picked up their bug in the general community, indicating the extent of the problem.

"There are likely to be more because what you're picking up in hospitals is just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

"It probably is killing lots of people but it happens in the developing world and there's no way of measuring it."

Collignon blamed the new bugs on the "abuse" of antibiotics in medicine and also in agriculture, saying some countries used them on billions of chickens, which develop bacteria and are then eaten by humans.

The professor, who sits on World Health Organisation panels on antibiotics, called for a worldwide crackdown on antibiotics use along with a major hygiene campaign to stop the bugs spreading.

"All of these systems are interlinked through our food. Wherever we use antibiotics and wherever we over-use them we will get superbugs develop and we will get problems," Collignon said.

"People are dying in large numbers because there's no antibiotics they can obtain, particularly in developing countries," he added. "This is getting worse, there are no antibiotics in the pipeline so we have to work with what we've got."

[kuronosan]

Ugh, not this stupid shit again.

These NDM strains of E. coli and K. pneumo are so rare that to infect somebody they would still have to exceed the dose required to actually infect the hose.

These are also mostly susceptible to colistin and other cyclines, and what the article fails to mention is whether or not it is susceptible to vancomycin and other strong drugs. It only says it is resistant to carbapenems (which they claim are the last resort drug... and they are not).

Cue that GIF of the reporter fucking up science.

I'm aware that it's "spread" to Australia but it simply means there is just a documented case. Unless there's an outbreak nobody has anything to worry about.

[BerenTebogo]

Ugh, not this stupid shit again.

These NDM strains of E. coli and K. pneumo are so rare that to infect somebody they would still have to exceed the dose required to actually infect the hose.

These are also mostly susceptible to colistin and other cyclines, and what the article fails to mention is whether or not it is susceptible to vancomycin and other strong drugs. It only says it is resistant to carbapenems (which they claim are the last resort drug... and they are not).

Cue that GIF of the reporter fucking up science.

I'm aware that it's "spread" to Australia but it simply means there is just a documented case. Unless there's an outbreak nobody has anything to worry about.

Are rabid pineapples plotting to overthrow our government? Find out tonight at 11:00 on Channel 17 news!
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11:59pm
reporter> nope! Well, that's our show!

Fuck the media.

[bechyni]

Came in here thinking this

[Correction]

I'm more shocked it's not Vajira making this thread.

[Chen]

this is gonna be another year of retarded just like swine flu

[brisk]

I'm more shocked it's not Vajira making this thread.

And with no blaring red text to boot.

[eunhye]

Where's Kathleen Sebillius to the rescue?

[Acturus]

this is gonna be another year of retarded just like swine flu

Naw, superbugs like MRSA are associated with hospital-acquired infections. Dangerous post-op stuff, but pretty much limited to post-op.

I'm more shocked it's not Vajira making this thread.

Oh, oops?

[Streak]

The swine flu was pretty bad (both my wife and myself caught it) but I've been more sick from other things. I remember the really striking thing being the respitory problems. I've never really had problems just breathing like I did from that flu. The other symptoms were pretty run-of-the-mill. Although we were OK, I could see how people with poor general health or other complications could have been really badly off from it.