Hello Pezz, <<SARS play>> ... looks like the US is trying to out do China on the bug front ... call me paranoid, but why do I get the feel that a precisely 'designed' set of circumstances is threatening to pull my NAV down in a variety of different and sometimes exotic ways?
world.scmp.com
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
New superbug strain threatens the healthy
DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR in Atlanta, Georgia
A drug-resistant superbug that normally only infects hospital patients is now hitting healthy people.
Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) usually enters the wounds of patients weakened by disease or injury. It is especially dangerous after surgery. But a new strain, which can be transmitted simply by skin contact and poses a risk to healthy people, has emerged.
The alarming development first occurred in the US, where thousands of people have already been infected. According to a report in New Scientist magazine, the new superbug might now have reached Europe.
MRSA cases had been reported in the Netherlands, Scotland and France. But experts do not yet know whether these bacteria are the same as the US strain or evolved locally. Whatever the case, they are sure the US strain will cross the Atlantic in the end.
"It will come to Europe and it will spread," said Giles Edwards, deputy director of the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory in Glasgow.
Scott Fridkin, a medical epidemiologist at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, which is investigating the outbreaks, said: "We are greatly concerned that MRSA has emerged in the community in people with no ties to health care."
The strain is said to have been "spreading like wildfire" in crowded prisons, but there have also been numerous smaller outbreaks in towns and cities across the US, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Miami.
Although most of the infected people are gay men, the superbug is not restricted to this group - athletes, schoolchildren, and newborn infants have all fallen victim. The infections usually appear as sores that resemble insect bites. If not treated properly, abscesses and boils can develop, requiring repeated courses of antibiotics or surgery.
If it reaches the lungs or bloodstream, MRSA can cause pneumonia or deadly septicaemia blood poisoning. There has also been one report of the bug spreading via food, causing gastroenteritis.
Health officials suspect the large number of cases among gay men is due to skin-to-skin contact during intercourse rather than conventional sexual transmission.
People in contact sports were also said to be at risk. Last September, in Pasadena city, Texas, there were 50 cases among students, some on the same football team.
Officials do not have exact numbers of infections because MRSA is not a notifiable disease in the US. In Los Angeles, the authorities said there had been scores of infections among gay men, and 35 children had been admitted to hospital.
Health officials were also battling to contain an outbreak in the county jail that so far has affected almost 1,000 inmates, with 66 needing hospital treatment.
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