7 infected, 2 dead, nearly 200 exposed after 'superbug' outbreak at Los Angeles hospital | Emergency Preparedness

7 infected, 2 dead, nearly 200 exposed after 'superbug' outbreak at Los Angeles hospital

Admin

Forum Posts: 31782

Member Since:
15 Feb ’12

Offline

20 Feb ’15 - 8:47 am

maybe the scientists who said pandemic in that other thread was correct.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - A "superbug" outbreak suspected in the deaths of two Los Angeles hospital patients is raising disturbing questions about the design of a hard-to-clean medical instrument used on more than half a million people in the U.S. every year.

At least seven people — two of whom died — have been infected with a potentially lethal, antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria after undergoing endoscopic procedures at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center between October and January. More than 170 other patients may also have been exposed, hospital officials said.

The infections may have been transmitted through two contaminated endoscopes that were used to diagnose and treat pancreatic and bile-duct problems. The instruments were found to have "embedded" infections even though they had been cleaned according to manufacturer's instructions, said Dr. Robert Cherry, the hospital's chief medical and quality officer. Five other scopes were cleared.
Hospital officials said they immediately removed contaminated medical devices and adopted more stringent sterilization techniques.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, health officials sought to reassure the public that there is no broad danger.
"This outbreak is not a threat to public health," said Dr. Benjamin Schwartz, deputy director of acute communicable disease control and prevention for the LA County Department of Public Health.

Infections of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, have been reported at hospitals around the country, and some have been linked to the type of endoscope used at UCLA. The duodenoscope is a thin, flexible fiber-optic tube that is inserted down the throat to enable a doctor to examine an organ. It typically has a light and a miniature camera.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/7-infected-2-dead-nearly-200-exposed-superbug-103407031.html

Admin

Forum Posts: 31782

Member Since:
15 Feb ’12

Offline

20 Feb ’15 - 8:49 am

wonder if this will help

New Delhi (CNN)President Barack Obama wants to double the government's efforts combating drug-resistant superbugs responsible for millions of illnesses each year.

The White House said Tuesday that Obama will call for $1.2 billion in his upcoming budget proposal to fund research efforts and training programs designed to slow the spike in bacteria that defy antibiotics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say those kinds of bugs kill 23,000 people a year in the United States, and cause 2 million sicknesses.

Obama wants to ramp up research efforts at government agencies looking into how bacteria grows immune to widely used antibiotics, and supporting scientists developing new drugs.

Experts say a rise in bugs that aren't stopped by drugs presents one of the biggest public health threats to the United States. The problem, they say, originates in overuse of widely available antibiotics, some of which don't require a doctor's prescription.

Researchers are also probing the links between superbugs and the widespread use of antibiotics in livestock.

Obama signed an executive order in September that established an inter-agency task force charged with developing a government strategy for superbugs, and set reduction goals for the numbers of drug-resistant infections each year.

The White House's budget request heads to Capitol Hill on Feb. 2

http://edition.cnn.c.....index.html