Posted on 09/15/2012 4:43:18 PM PDT by nuconvert
A deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics has killed a seventh person at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland.
(Excerpt) Read more at health.yahoo.net ...
The article says the patient was a recipient of a bone marrow transplant. The would mean his immune system was already compromised. No surprise he caught something nasty.
For all of my adult life we’ve had new ‘superbugs’.
We then developed new ‘super anti-biotics’ to kill them.
This will continue (with the Obamacare being a temporary roadblock) until forever.
ping
Doesn't sound like this victim was the healthiest person to begin with.
Isn't this how the Zombie Apocalypse starts?
Hospitals are getting to be dangerous places. First Mersa and now this.
Paging Steven King... will Mr King please pick up the nearest courtesy phone....
Typically, antibiotic resistant bacteria are already in most people, but they only become a problem when someone’s healthy intestinal flora is damaged.
That is, the intestines have between 300-1000 or more different kinds of bacteria in them, of which only 30-40 kinds take up almost all the physical space. They prevent the pathogenic bacteria from growing too much by denying them living room.
Antibiotics, disease, radiation, toxins and poisons can harm these 30-40 healthy bacteria, leaving large amounts of space for the antibiotic resistant bacteria to have a population explosion.
While a little of these antibiotic resistant bacteria don’t hurt us, a large enough bloom can be extremely destructive or even kill you.
Often outbreaks in hospitals of antibiotic resistant bacteria happen because of the overuse of antibiotics. They try to end the epidemic by cleaning and sterilizing things, but it doesn’t work. However, implementing tight controls for the use of antibiotics will often stop the epidemic in its tracks.
On a personal note, it is possible to strengthen the intestinal flora by taking “probiotics”. There are now several brands of a very good probiotics found in a live culture liquid yoghurt drink called “Kefir”, now in the grocery stores. It is both tasty and contains some 10 or so different strains of healthy bacteria, so is also a great idea for someone to take who has taken antibiotics.
Maybe they should change the name to NID - National Institute for Diseases.
We purchased alcohol swabs last year for medical use. One night we received a robo call from the pharmacy where we purchased them, which was a warning not to use them as they were suspected of being contaminated with the bacteria strain discussed in this article. Just a heads up.
FROM THE LINKED ARTICLE: “He was the 19th patient at the hospital to contract an antibiotic-resistant strain of KPC, or Klebsiella pneumoniae. The outbreak stemmed from a single patient carrying the superbug who arrived at the hospital last summer.”
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Last Summer? Sounds as though they need to institute, on an URGENT basis, a much better protocol for control and prevention of hospital infections.
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