CDC: Deadly bacterial illness appears to be spreading

[Guest guest]

Everything else can be tracked, researched except for the effects of

mycotoxicosis and or inhalation of mycotoxins. This does get a bit

ridiculous after awhile.

KC

CDC: Deadly bacterial illness appears to be spreading

Friday, December 2, 2005; Posted: 11:51 a.m. EST (16:51 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/12/02/deadly.bacteria.ap/in

dex.html

What Is This? ATLANTA , Georgia (AP) -- A deadly bacterial illness

commonly seen in people on antibiotics appears to be growing more

common -- even in patients not taking such drugs, according to a

report published Thursday in a federal health journal.

In another article in the New England Journal of Medicine, health

officials said samples of the same bacterium taken from eight U.S.

hospitals show it is mutating to become even more resistant to

antibiotics.

" I don't want to scare people away from using antibiotics. ... But

it's concerning, and we need to respond, " said Dr. L. Clifford

Mc, an author of both articles and an epidemiologist at the

federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

" Hospitals need to be conducting surveillance and implementing

control measures. And all of us need to realize the risk of

antibiotic use may be increasing " as the bacteria continue to

mutate, Mc said.

The bacterium is Clostridium difficile, also known as C-diff. The

germ is becoming a regular menace in hospitals and nursing homes,

and last year it was blamed for 100 deaths over 18 months at a

hospital in Quebec, Canada.

" What exactly has made C-diff act up right now, we don't know, "

Mc said.

The article published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly

Report focused on cases involving 33 otherwise healthy people that

were reported since 2003 in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New

Hampshire.

Most of the 33 hadn't been in a hospital within three months of

getting sick, and eight said they hadn't taken any antibiotics in

that span.

C-diff is found in the colon and can cause diarrhea and a more

serious intestinal condition known as colitis. It is spread by

spores in feces.

The spores are difficult to kill with most conventional household

cleaners. Even washing your hands with an antibacterial soap doesn't

eliminate all the germs.

C-diff has grown resistant to certain antibiotics that work against

other colon bacteria. The result: When patients take those

antibiotics, particularly clindamycin, competing bacteria die off

and C-diff explodes.

One of the 33 patients in the report died -- a 31-year-old

Pennsylvania woman who was 14 weeks pregnant with twins when she

first went to the emergency room with symptoms. Despite treatment

with antibiotics considered effective against C-diff, she lost the

fetuses and then died.

Ten of the 33 were otherwise healthy pregnant women or women who had

recently given birth who had had brief hospital stays. The rest were

people in the Philadelphia area who had not been in a hospital in

the three months before their illness.

The New England Journal of Medicine article looked at C-diff samples

taken between 2000 and 2003 from eight hospitals in six states --

Georgia, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

The researchers found that a virulent strain of C-diff rarely seen

before 2000 accounted for more than half of the samples taken in the

hospitals. What's more, the BI strain -- as it is called -- seems to

have built resistance to two of the newest antibiotics in the

fluoroquinolones class commonly used in hospitals.

Much of the data was presented at a scientific meeting in Boston

last year, Mc said.

Another NEJM article looked at the occurrence of C-diff in 12

hospitals in Quebec. Researchers counted 1,703 patients with C-diff

illnesses, and 422 died within 30 days of diagnosis.

Exposure to fluoroquinolones and other antibiotics was clearly a

risk for patients, according to the Canadian researchers who wrote

the article.

Doctors watching for C-diff in hospitals and nursing home patients

need to look for it in other patients as well, Mc said.

Patients need to be wary too. " If you have severe diarrhea, seek

attention from a physician, " he said.