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Preventing Super Bug Infection

(ARA) – Each year more than a million patients in the United States develop infections caused by deadly super bugs that have developed resistance to the antibiotics normally used to treat them.  The sources of these life-threatening super bug infections are from both hospitals and outpatient facilities. Now, patients can be proactive in their fights against super bugs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1.7 million people in the United States each year develop health care associated infections and more than 100,000 people die each year as a result of these infections.

The number of hospital patients stricken by an infection that can lead to gangrene, blood poisoning and even death increased by 200 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the latest “News and Numbers” from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This sharp upturn follows a 74 percent increase in the number of cases between 1993 and 2000.

“It’s clear that hospital and health care professionals need to do more to prevent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA, an antibiotic resistant staph infection, especially in radiology,” says Dr. Peter Rothschild, founder of Patient Comfort Systems — a company that strives to minimize the risk of biological contamination on patient exam pads. “While there are many things hospitals and diagnostic imaging centers can do, there are also many proactive steps patients can take to help protect themselves from healthcare acquired infections.”

The CDC reports that the number one action for preventing hospital acquired super bug infections is better hand hygiene by medical staff, their patients and visitors.

The following are a few important tips to keep in mind visiting a clinic or hospital:

If you are scheduled for an MRI and you are immunosuppressed, have HIV/AIDS, a chronic disease, have any type of compromised immune system or are elderly you owe it to yourself to demand to see a hospital or clinic’s infection control policy.

Visit the facility before your appointment to see their infection control. By the time you are lying on the table for your scan it is often too late.

Ask for the facility to fax or e-mail a copy of their infection control policy.  If they are not willing to share it, it probably means they do not have one.

Wash your own hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Ask your health care provider to wash his or her hands and/or change their gloves prior to being examined.

Carry antibacterial wipes and wipe down wheelchairs, blood pressure cuffs, stethoscope diaphragms and the exam pad areas, or request that health care workers perform this simple sanitization before you are examined.

Pull back the white sheet, or paper, covering the pads in exam rooms. If the underlying pad is worn, torn or stained, ask for another exam room or new pads. Ask what the process is for disinfecting the pads and equipment you will contact. You can also carry a small portable black light to be used to check for biological contamination.

Ask for a report of infection rates from hospitals and clinics. Carefully choose a health care facility based upon its infection rates.

Five days prior to surgery, bathe each day with chlorhexidine soap, which is available without a prescription, to prevent dangerous bacteria from contaminating the skin. Ask that clippers be used instead of a razor to clear the surgical site. Razors can cause small nicks in the skin allowing bacteria to enter the body.

If an IV is required, make sure that the IV is inserted under sterile conditions. The skin area should be disinfected and the IV changed every three to four days. Also make sure that the person inserting or manipulating the IV washes his/her hands and wears sterile gloves.

Avoid touching your hands to your mouth and nose. Don’t leave eating utensils lying by the bedside, and always disinfect your hands before and after eating or touching your face.

Ask your doctor to test you for the MRSA super bug bacteria at least one week prior to going into the hospital.

By taking these proactive steps you can considerably reduce the risk of exposure to these deadly super bug infections for you and your loved ones in any health care setting.

For more information about hospital acquired infections and prevention, visit www.PatientComfortSystems.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

CDC Get Smart Week

It′s Time to Get Smart about the Use of Antibiotics

CDC campaign aims to draw attention to the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance

What do sinusitis, most sore throats, bronchitis, runny noses and the regular cold have in common? They are upper respiratory tract infections usually caused by viruses that can′t be cured with antibiotics. Yet, each year, health care providers in the U.S. prescribe tens of millions of antibiotics for viral infections.

To bring attention to this increasing problem, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be observing the Get Smart About Antibiotics Week October 6-10, 2008. The campaign will highlight the coordinated efforts of the agency, states, non-profit partners, and for-profit partners to educate the public about antibiotic resistance and the importance of appropriate antibiotic use.

“Antibiotic overuse is a serious problem and a threat to everyone′s health,” says Dr. Lauri Hicks, medical director of CDC′s Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work program. Over-prescribing antibiotics, using a broad-spectrum therapy when a more specific drug would be better, starting and stopping medications, giving leftover medications to a friend who appears to have the same ailment you had, all contribute to the problem of antibiotic drug resistance, according to Hicks.

“As we enter this year′s cold and flu season, we ask parents to not insist on getting antibiotics when a health care provider says they are not needed,” says Hicks. “If you have a cold, or the flu, antibiotics won’t work for you.”

According to Hicks antibiotics kill bacteria, not the viruses that cause colds or flu, most coughs and bronchitis, sore throats not caused by strep, and runny noses. Taking antibiotics when you don′t need them or not as prescribed increases your risk of getting an infection later that resists antibiotic treatment. If the health care provider’s recommendation is to wait- wait. People need to be patient and let the body do its work.

Hicks also asks health care providers to take the time to educate their patients about antibiotic resistance and the possibility of having serious side effects. For example, allergic reactions to antibiotics, such as rash and anaphylaxis, send thousands of patients to the emergency room each year, according to a recent study published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal.

To help prevent illness, Hicks encourages people to wash their hands frequently, get the flu vaccine and avoid close contact with people who are sick.

The campaign will reach out to parents and health care providers through advertisements, fact sheets, brochures, posters, radio and print public service announcements, podcasts, and mainstream media interviews.

For more information or to download free campaign materials, visit www.cdc.gov/getsmart.

Bryce Burton 16 years old paralyzed by MRSA

16 year old Bryce Burton was paralyzed by a MRSA tumor on his spine 7/30/08. MRSA continues to be a very serious infection with far reaching effects.

MRSA and C difficile superbug deaths at 10,000 a year

It seem that the governments and hospitals still do not appreciate the full dangers and difficulties of preventing and treating MRSA. This article is from a UK news source describing the difficulty in predicting and preventing MRSA. it also shows the frustrations that it may be the hospital stay, not the illness that is worse for the patient.

MRSA and C difficile superbug deaths at 10,000 a year

Lois Rogers

The number of patients in British hospitals dying from superbug infections has reached more than 10,000 every year, according to an expert.

The new figure is about 20% higher than the official toll of 8,000 a year.

Mark Enright, professor of molecular epidemiology at Imperial College London, said that the real number of those succumbing to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C difficile) in the UK is higher than the government’s records show.

“I think it is at least 10,000 a year,” he said. “A lot of people are never tested for these infections and their deaths are put down to something else.”

“Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are now so well established here, we will never get rid of them,” said Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University and a world expert.

Latest European figures show that Britain’s hospitals are still teeming with treatment-resistant bacteria.

While strict hygiene measures have ensured low infection rates in other countries, microbiologists here are privately admitting that Britain’s problem is so out of control, it will be impossible to prevent the high level of deaths from continuing.

The government’s pledge to reduce rates of MRSA to half the 2004 level is unattainable, they say.

According to figures from Eurosurveillance, at least 42% of MRSA bacteria in British hospitals are “superstrains”, compared with rates of 20% or lower elsewhere.

In the 31-nation European antisuperbug league table, Britain lies close to the bottom, with an infection-control performance better than those of only Malta, Greece, Portugal and Romania.

For the full story visit

MRSA Death in Florida Prison

Our condolences go out to the family and friends of Dorothy Dian Palinchik who died yesterday. She had been battling for 2 weeks with a staph infection that started in a Pinellas County Jail in Florida. This highlight the fact that MRSA needs be taken seriously by health care providers, whether in a hospital or a prison. MRSA is a deadly infection that has superior resistance to antibiotics.

Here is the story as reported by the local paper. There is a link at the end for the full story.

Dorothy Dian Palinchik dies only hours after her family decides to remove her from life support.

By Johnathan Abel, Times Staff Writer
Published February 29, 2008

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Dorothy Helen Palinchik began the last day of her daughter’s life with a terrible choice.Her daughter, Dorothy Dian Palinchik, was in a medically induced coma at Largo Medical Center, suffering from a staph infection and pneumonia, both of which the family said she contracted at the Pinellas County Jail.

Just before 7 a.m. Thursday, doctors told Palinchik that her 42-year-old daughter’s blackened hands and feet were irreversibly damaged and her bowels were not viable.

The only choice was between amputating all of Palinchik’s limbs or taking her off life support. Just a few hours later, doctors amended their decision, saying amputation was out of the question.

“They said she would never live through something like that,” Palinchik’s mother said.

At that point, the family decided to remove Palinchik from life support, once her sister Annette Olds drove in from Fort Myers this morning.

But Palinchik’s ravaged body couldn’t wait.

At 4:14 p.m. she was pronounced dead, ending a tortured two-week illness that has raised questions about the medical care at the Pinellas County Jail.

Palinchik’s family blames the jail for not recognizing the illness earlier and for not treating it aggressively enough. They believe her life could have been saved if she’d been taken to the hospital sooner.

On Thursday, Palinchik’s mother had a preliminary conversation with St. Petersburg lawyer Thomas D. Masterson about suing the jail.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said privacy laws prevented her from discussing Palinchik’s medical treatment. She said an internal investigation is under way, which is standard in any case where an inmate becomes gravely ill.

The only thing she could say about Palinchik’s condition is that she showed no signs of the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection when she was booked into the jail on Feb. 13.

One of the remarkable aspects of Palinchik’s death is how quickly she deteriorated.

For more of this story visit

Victim of MRSA and Neglect – Gets Award

If you are a victim of a Hospitals neglect and contract MRSA it may be time to seek the advice of an attorney familiar with MRSA and Hospital care. Hospitals should be doing everything possible worldwide to prevent MRSA from infecting its patients during their stay. Here is what one UK court case had as its outcome.

Warning after star’s £5m MRSA pay-out

A BOLTON solicitor is warning hospitals they could face a surge of new superbug claims.

The alert comes after former Men Behaving Badly star Leslie Ash won a record £5 million out-of-court settlement after she contracted MRSA while a patient at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

People who contract infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile while in hospital could now feel more confident about making a claim against the NHS, according to Stephenson’s Solicitors, based in Silverwell Street, Bolton.

For the full story visit

Grieving family plead for action on MRSA crisis

Why is it that the places we go to for health care still do not understand MRSA and how to better prevent it. When a person is sick we go to a hospital to get better and not worse. Hospitals need to be held to higher standards as this article suggests.

Grieving family plead for action on MRSA crisis

From the Independent.ie News
Saturday February 02 2008

The distraught family of a civil rights activist who died in hospital have called on the Government to act on the MRSA crisis.

Barbara Forde (67), died on December 3, 2006, just over a month after entering Beaumont Hospital for an abdominal operation. An inquest found yesterday that MRSA was a contributing factor in her decline after the operation.

Her brother Kieran Forde said after the inquest: “It is now up to the politicians to do something about this”.

Ms Forde, from Dollymount Road in Clontarf in Dublin, rapidly deteriorated after contracting post-operative pneumonia, MRSA pneumonia (hospital acquired) and blood clots in her lungs after the operation.

Barbara’s brother Dermot Forde, a practising vet, attacked the Government and health system claiming meat processing plants have stricter hygiene standards than Irish hospitals.

He said: “There is more bio-security in terms of access to chicken farms then there is in terms of access to intensive care post-operative units”.

Risk

Dr Brian Farrell, Dublin City Coroner, found that the MRSA pneumonia along with her other conditions: “constituted significant risk factors for the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)”. He found she ultimately died from ARDS.

Mr Declan Buckley, representing Beaumont Hospital, established that MRSA was only one of a number of factors that lead to Ms Forde’s death.

In cross examining Mr Henry Osbourne, Ms Forde’s hospital consultant, it was established that Ms Forde had MRSA on November 9 2006, which was hospital acquired, but it was treated and seemed to have cleared by November 13.

The coroner accepted these findings but suggested that the MRSA contracted did not help Ms Forde at that time and Mr Osbourne agreed.

Mr Osbourne later said: “Anything that was going to affect Ms Forde’s lung function post -operation at that time was going to be a significant factor”.

For more of this article

MRSA case found in South Boston School

In South Boston on Friday a MRSA case has been reported by local doctors. It so so important to make sure your children take proper steps to aviod MRSA.

SOUTH BOSTON – Dr. Charles Devine, district director of the Southside Health Department, confirmed Thursday a case of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, has surfaced at South Boston Elementary School.

Working with the school system, Devine sent a letter home to parents of all children at South Boston Elementary School on Wednesday informing them that MRSA had been positively identified at the school.

“We’re doing everything we can as a division to make sure our schools are clean and our students are safe,” Halifax County School Superintendent Paul Stapleton said.

Stapleton said the student who had the infection was under the care of a physician and was homebound until the physician determined the student fit to return to school.

“The classroom was sanitized”

For the full story visit

Studies highlight growing threat of MRSA infection

Studies highlight growing threat of MRSA infection

January 24, 2008

Researchers in the United States have warned about the likelihood of new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) emerging over the next fews years and the threats they pose. MRSA is not only considered a growing problem among people, but among horses, with up to 5% of horses in the general population known to carry the bacteria. On some farms, the prevalence can exceed 50%.

Carrier horses may never have a problem with MRSA, but are more likely to develop an MRSA infection under certain conditions, and there is a risk they can transmit MRSA to other horses and people.

The latest US research has explored Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infections, caused primarily by a single strain – USA300.

“The USA300 group of strains appears to have extraordinary transmissibility and fitness,” says Dr Frank DeLeo, based at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. “We anticipate that new USA300 derivatives will emerge within the next several years and that these strains will have a wide range of disease-causing potential.”

CA-MRSA is considered an emerging public health concern. It typically causes readily treatable soft-tissue infections such as boils, but also can lead to life-threatening conditions that are difficult to treat.

Two studies have been conducted into CA-MRSA. One resolves debate about the evolution of CA-MRSA in the United States, ruling out the previously held possibility that multiple strains of USA300 – the most troublesome type of CA-MRSA in the United States – emerged randomly with similar characteristics.

For the full story

Copyright © 2008 MRSA Diagnosis

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