Bacteria tests reveal how MRSA strain can kill in 24 hours

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 1/19/07 | Ian Sample

[kiriath_jearim]

Scientists have unravelled the workings of a deadly superbug that attacks healthy young people and can kill within 24 hours.

PVL-producing MRSA, a highly-virulent strain of the drug-resistant superbug, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, has spread around the world and caused deaths in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia. PVL or panton-valentine leukocidin toxin destroys white blood cells and usually causes boils and other skin complaints. But if it infects open wounds it can cause necrotising pneumonia, a disease that rapidly destroys lung tissue and is lethal in 75% of cases.

Thousands of infections have been recorded across the US, but scientists believe the number is likely to rise in Britain.

In 2004 the bug claimed the life of Richard Campbell-Smith, a fit 18-year-old Royal Marine, who died three days after scratching his legs on gorse during a training exercise in Devon. In December an outbreak at Norfolk and Norwich University hospital killed a baby and infected five others. According to the Health Protection Agency there were 106 cases of PVL-MRSA in England and Wales in 2005 and one confirmed death from necrotising pneumonia caused by the infection.

Scientists at the University of Texas in Houston and Lyon University in France conducted experiments into PVL to work out why it was so lethal. They took two batches of normal staphylococcus aureus bacteria and modified one of them to produce the PVL toxin.

The researchers exposed mice to the different groups of bacteria, to see if they developed lung infections. Animals that inhaled the normal staphylococcus were unaffected, but those that inhaled the PVL-producing staphylococcus quickly developed necrotising pneumonia, with some dying within 48 hours.

[Paleo Conservative]

who died three days after scratching his legs on gorse during a training exercise in Devon.

Can someone translate that into American?

[IronJack]

Oh, horrors! Another piece of the sky is falling! First it was SARS. Then Bird Flu. Now this! Eeeeeeeeeek!

[GSlob]

gorse, n. yellow-flowered evergreen shrub with sharp thorns, growing on wasteland [also called furze or whin]

[Captain Rhino]

Gorse (Ulex) comprises a genus of about 20 species of evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia. Other common names for gorse include furse, whin and furze.

Gorse is closely related to the brooms, and like them, has green stems and very small leaves and adapts to dry growing conditions, but differs in its extreme spininess, with the leaves being modified into 1-4 cm long spines. All the species have yellow flowers, some with a very long flowering season.

A picture at the link shows the 1/2 to 2 inch long spines like the ones that scratched the Royal Marine. However, if the information in the article is accurate, the scratch just provided the entry point for the bacterium which was either already on his skin or, more likely, in the medical facilities where he was initially treated

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorse

[Eagles6]

You've forgotten the keystone of it all, global warming.

[ThirstyMan]

This is a serious health problem. People who stay in the hospital for any length of time are especially vulnerable, no matter what age.
I was talking to a health care professional this week and I thought she said that 1/4 of the hospital patients are getting MRSA.

[Nathan Zachary]

It's nothing to laugh at. Hospitals are the most likely places for these superbugs to contaminate, which makes them useless should a pandemic break out.

Sooner or later, it's going to happen. I hope you are well prepared, because society will collapse overnight should something like that happen. A lot of people will be looking for YOUR food and supplies to survive.

Imagine the hordes of city people fleeing the city to escape contact with people who may have the plague and the smell of rotting corpses, expecting to find farms with vaste stores of food.

[Nathan Zachary]

"You've forgotten the keystone of it all, global warming."

I'm sure "global warming" will be long forgotten if a deadly pandemic ever broke out. Besides, Global warming would be instantly corrected should half (or more)of the worlds population die off.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. MRSA is interesting.

[az wildkitten]

As a nurse MRSA is FRIGHTENING. If you need surgery try to make it outpatient if at all possible. The worst place to be is a hospital, and I work in one. I am appalled when I see infants allowed to crawl on the floor of hospital waiting rooms.

[IronJack]

Imagine the hordes of city people fleeing the city to escape contact with people who may have the plague and the smell of rotting corpses, expecting to find farms with vaste stores of food.

Read Daniel Dafoe's Journal of the Plague Year.

It's not something I'm expecting anytime soon ...

[blinachka]

MRSA is serious stuff.

My own father contracted it while in the hospital and it was what ultimately led to his death. He had cancer and was hoping for a new treatment but that treatment had to be delayed due to the MRSA and the treatment he required for it (intravenous Vancomycin). He could not recieve more treatment for the cancer until the MRSA infection was "under control" but he never made it that far.

Vancomycin is an extremely powerful antibiotic that is extremely corrosive to the vascular system. He died as a result of his Jugular vein "opening up" (he bled out) which was most likely due to the long-term use of Vancomycin. (His doctor called the treatment with it a "double-edged sword" in that it could get rid of the MRSA which he needed to be able to recieve further cancer treatment but the treatment with Vancomycin could weaken his vascular system enough to kill him - mostly because of his already weakened and compromised bodily integrity).

What is even scarier about MRSA and these "super bug" Staph infections is their ability to mutate and become ever more resistant. There is now also VRSA - that is Vancomycin Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus. Nosocomial infections are one of the most serious probles facing healthcare facilities these days.

[PGalt]

Condolences to you, your sis, your mom, your brother-in-law and the rest of your dad's family and friends.

Thanks for the work that you do and thanks for informing us about VRSA (certainly haven't heard about that one and I've been reading MRSA threads when I see them posted.).

[sodpoodle]

Gorse is a type of broom. A wild shrub found on moors.

Does that help?

[blinachka]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful message! :)

I didn't know about VRSA until I took my microbiology course this past fall semester! It's pretty rare compared to MRSA but it is out there.

My professor was fantastic and let me do a nasal swab and then culture it and test it for MRSA. Luckily the Staph Aureus I carry (which most people do) as "normal flora" was highly resistant to the Methicillin. :) I was relieved as I figured if anyone would have picked up the Methicillin-resistant strain from my Dad it would have been me as I was the one with the closest contact with him. It's nice to know that I'm starting my nursing clinicals without having to worry about being the person that passes on MRSA to my nursing home patients.

[flashbunny]

"Gorse is a type of broom. A wild shrub found on moors. "

Im sorry, the card says moops.

[Husker24]

there were 106 cases of PVL-MRSA in England and Wales in 2005 and one confirmed death from necrotising pneumonia caused by the infection.

One death out of 106 cases is not a 75% mortality rate.

[Wiseghy]

A major reason for rapid rise in the US health costs, is a growing shortage of hospitals.

The capital costs of building new healthcare facilities is extremely high. One of the many reasons for this is the need for advanced air-fitration to stop the spread of diseases like this one.

As it stands, areas and countries without hospitals with very strong infection control could find that their healthcare facilities are the number one vector for illnesses like this one.

[srmorton]

I am so sorry to hear about your father. I teach Clinical Microbiology to Medical Laboratory Technology students and am well aware of the danger of MRSA. I recently learned that about 15% of the reported cases are now of the community acquired variety which is really scary. Once the bug becomes resistant to Vancomycin, there is really nothing they can used to treat it successfully.

There is also another Gram positive coccus, Enterococcus, that is normal in the intestine, but can cause serious infections elsewhere in the body. Many of the hospital strains of it are "VRE" - Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus. A pandemic of one of these "super-bugs" poses a MUCH greater threat to civilization than does the dubious theory of global warming.