(Minghui.org) "Deadly infections with bacteria that resist even the strongest antibiotics are on the rise in hospitals in the United States, and there is only a 'limited window of opportunity' to halt their spread, health officials warned Tuesday."

This was the lead paragraph in a New York Times article March 5. Numerous other prominent media including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times ran similar stories.
 
"A deadly type of infection that has become difficult and sometimes impossible to treat is on the rise in American hospitals, and threatens to spread to otherwise healthy people outside of medical facilities," wrote the Wall Street Journal.
 
"The bacteria, normally found in the gut, have acquired a lethal trait: they are unscathed by antibiotics, including carbapenems, a group of drugs that are generally considered a last resort. When these resistant germs invade parts of the body where they do not belong, like the bloodstream, lungs or urinary tract, the illness may be untreatable. The death rate from bloodstream infections can reach 50 percent," according to the Wall Street Journal report.
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a US government health organization, held a telephone press conference announcing the news. 
CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden called the organisms “nightmare bacteria” and noted that they could pass their trait for drug resistance along to other bacteria.  
 
"Dubbed CRE—for carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae—the germs kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them," reported the Wall Street Journal. 
 
Close to 4% of short-stay hospitals had at least one patient with CRE in the first half of last year, while almost 18% of long-term acute-care hospitals had one, with a total of 200 hospitals reporting at least one CRE infection. And the resistant Klebsiella type, first detected in a single health-care facility in North Carolina a decade ago, has now been reported in 42 states, the CDC said.
 
The New York Times explained, "The disease centers recommended a variety of ways to try to stop the infections from spreading. The advice includes the usual call for ruthless scrubbing of all surfaces and relentless handwashing.
 
"But hospitals are also urged to find out whether patients are infected, isolate those who are, and assign dedicated-care teams and equipment to infected people only, to avoid spreading the bacteria to others." 
 
Sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov)
New York Times (nytimes.com)
Wall Street Journal (wsj.com)

Category: Perspective