acinetobacter baumannii - wonder if they have a test for this?

[Guest guest]

The Invisible Enemy in Iraq

http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,72532-1.html?

tw=wn_story_page_next1

....Since OPERATION Iraqi Freedom began in 2003, more than 700 US

soldiers have been infected or colonized with Acinetobacter

baumannii. A significant number of additional cases have been found

in the Canadian and British armed forces, and among wounded Iraqi

civilians. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has recorded seven

deaths caused by the bacteria in US hospitals along the evacuation

chain. Four were unlucky civilians who picked up the bug at Walter

Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, while undergoing

treatment for other life-threatening conditions. Another was a 63-

year-old woman, also chronically ill, who shared a ward at Landstuhl

with infected coalition troops.

Behind the scenes, the spread of a pathogen that targets wounded GIs

has triggered broad reforms in both combat medical care and the

Pentagon's networks for tracking bacterial threats within the ranks.

Interviews with current and former military physicians, recent

articles in medical journals, and internal reports reveal that the

Department of Defense has been waging a secret war within the larger

mission in Iraq and Afghanistan - a war against antibiotic-resistant

pathogens. ...