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xchrom

(108,903 posts) Wed Aug 22, 2012, 02:19 PM Aug 2012

SUPERBUG OUTBREAK IN US RESEARCH HOSPITAL KILLED 6

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_SUPERBUG_OUTBREAK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-22-14-06-00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Last year a deadly superbug spread through the nation's leading research hospital, killing six patients before it could be stopped.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md., scrubbed with bleach, locked down patients and even ripped out plumbing. In the end, it took gene detectives analyzing the germ's DNA to trace it to its source. It came from a New York City patient who was admitted for a medical study.

Infections like that at health care facilities claim an estimated 99,000 lives a year. No hospital is immune. The NIH on Wednesday published an unusually candid account of its outbreak in Science Translational Medicine. Researchers say the new gene technology may help other hospitals as they struggle to contain the growing threat of superbugs.

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SUPERBUG OUTBREAK IN US RESEARCH HOSPITAL KILLED 6 (Original Post) xchrom Aug 2012 OP

Bugs are fighting back Warpy Aug 2012 #1

Warpy

(111,352 posts)

1. Bugs are fighting back

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Wed Aug 22, 2012, 02:39 PM

Aug 2012

When MRSA was first starting to take hold 30 years ago, there was a spike among post op patients at one big teaching hospital I worked at. Infection Control was all over the place, swabbing staff as well as equipment. They finally tracked it down to a patch of damp wall in one of the operating rooms. They fixed the tiny leak in the plumbing and used live steam after they bleached everything in that room and that was it for a while.

Now that bug is in the community, mostly because hospitals were cheap and didn't allow staff simple things like shoe covers when they cared for contaminated patients, allowing the spores to be tracked out into the community. The genie is out of the bottle and there's no way to stuff him back in there.

Antibiotics. They were sure nice while they lasted.

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