Posted on 01/02/2007 10:38:12 AM PST by blam
Superbug emerging across Canada
Sharon Kirkey, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, January 02, 2007
A superbug that causes infections from large, boil-like lesions to hemorrhagic pneumonia and, in rare cases, ''flesh-eating'' disease is poised to ''emerge in force'' across Canada, a new report warns.
While the prospect of a flu pandemic has governments scrambling to develop emergency plans, an epidemic of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or CA-MRSA, is already raging in the U.S. and beginning to entrench itself here, infectious disease experts report today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
In the U.S., clusters have been reported in groups from NFL players to toddlers in day care.
In Canada, outbreaks have occurred in hospitals in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Infections are being reported in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. The Calgary Health Region sees between 40 and 70 cases per month.
Doctors are now investigating the possible transmission of the community-acquired staph strain among a small group of Calgarians, which would be one of the first Canadian reports outside a hospital setting.
''Not a day goes by where I'm in clinic that I'm not pulling out a scalpel to drain one of these things,'' says Dr. John Conly, co-author of the report and an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of Calgary.
''We're seeing far too many of them.''
The organism is an ''old foe with new fangs'', a pathogen that is virulent, drug-resistant and has an uncanny ability to ''disseminate at large,'' according to the CMAJ report. So far, its prevalence is thought to be low but rising in most parts of the country.
''Front-line physicians need to be aware of the increasing prevalence and the potential severity of CA-MRSA infection,'' the researchers write. The germ killed a healthy 30-year-old Calgary man and a three-month-old baby in Toronto in 2005. Both died of necrotizing pneumonia, or lung abscesses.
The infection begins with what looks like a spider bite, a red, very tender area that rises up and comes to a head just like a small boil. If not treated promptly, the lesions can develop into large, spreading abscesses in the soft tissues that can grown to the size of a baseball ''or even a grapefruit in some settings,'' Conly said in an interview.
People develop fever, malaise and flu-like symptoms. In some cases, MRSA can cause hemorrhagic pneumonia, or bleeding in the lungs. ''For some reason, there are people who are predisposed to develop what looks like standard pneumonia and very quickly they begin to cough up blood,'' Conly said.
Once confined to hospital patients, the staph infection is now occurring in healthy people. The community strain ''doesn't carry as much genetic baggage'' as the hospital strain and is sensitive to other antibiotics, Conly says.
''But it seems to have a propensity to cause very large abscesses in the soft tissues with copious drainage, and seems to spread much more readily than the hospital strain has done.''
It's also moving out of the traditional risk groups, such as intravenous drug users, the homeless, First Nations, people infected with HIV and the military.
Infectious disease ping. (Thanks to Oorang for the article)
MRSA = Chicken Flu = Ebola = SARS = Y2K = Swine Flu
MRSA is old news in the US long term care industry.
?? Otherwise healthy?
Old news in UK's NHS as well since cleanliness standards fell.
It isn't so much cleanliness here as it's seen as the end result of anti-biotic overuse during the last 40 years or so....
Are these super-bacterial strains being created by the overuse and abuse of antibiotics? If so, why hasn't the federal government banned the use of antibiotics in hand soap and the like? The wonderful thing about antibiotics is that they can kill bacteria within the human body without killing the human. There are any number of substances that can be used to kill germs outside of the body without creating antibiotic resistant strains.
Morgellons disease--run for your lives!
The resistant strains are the ones that survive when you quit taking your 10-day supply of penicillin on the 6th day because you feel better. If you'd taken the whole 10 days' worth, they would have died too, rather than reproduce and spread. That's how we've been lucky enough to develop a drug-resistant strain of TB, too - homeless people who get meds prescribed, then don't pick up their refills (or take them at all).
What's with the large boils?
Bubos?
While I agree with vaccines, I do not agree with the chicken pox vaccine. I think it's for the convenience of schools and parents.
Another side-effect of Canada's liberal immigration policy?
Additionally, some diseases are simply adapting to the above tactics. Because there isn't a treatment that can purge your body completely of HIV, the AIDS virus is particularly effective at evolving new and dangerous strains that are resistant to drug cocktails and rotating treatments. Recent reports also suggest that HIV may be evolving into a more deadly and faster-spreading form.
Fortunately for us all, nature does have a way of correcting itself in these situations. Unfortunately, that way is known as an epidemic. When a disease evolves into a sufficiently deadly and contagious strain, it rips through a population, killing off the weak and ensuring that the strong survive and pass their genes to the next generation.
FWIW if you care about public health issues.
Yep. Don't forget the asteroids. The scaremongers never quit.
I posit that this is a problem stemming from the wide spread use of SteriPaks.
In the old days, The entire room was kept sterile. With the pop open packs now, people forget about the surroundings.
You're very right. It's made healthcare providors lazy about basic sanitation. I also think its because anti-biotics were used to treat every minor complaint for so long that the humans lost resistance and the bugs became stronger.
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