This was posted on another thread by Iktomi and I have taken the liberty of posting it here as it is a significant development about which we should be aware.
Interesting article:
Drug-resistant germ escapes hospital confines
MRSA BY THE NUMBERS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates:
89 million people, or 32.4% of Americans, carry staph bacteria.
2.3 million people, or 0.8%, carry the drug-resistant form, MRSA.
126,000 people are hospitalized each year with MRSA infections.
5,000, at least, die as a result.
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
Hospitals are trying to protect their patients from a drug-resistant bug that is growing more common and dangerous.
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, has long been known as an infection associated with hospitals, where patients are already sick and vulnerable. A newer strain of MRSA known as "community associated" has emerged outside hospitals and is causing severe infections in previously healthy children and adults.
Now some hospitals are starting aggressive programs to keep the bug at bay. Known as "search and destroy," the programs are relatively untested in the USA, so they can be seen as an expensive gamble.
At Evanston Northwestern health care outside Chicago, all incoming patients are tested, and if they are found to carry MRSA, they are isolated and treated, says epidemiologist Ari Robiscek. Everyone who enters their rooms wears gloves and a gown.
People can carry MRSA bacteria, usually in their noses or on their skin, without being sick. But they can pass the bug to uninfected patients and health workers.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Va | Hospitals | MRSA
Standard tests take 48 hours to yield results, but newer ones cut that down to one to two hours. But they're more expensive — $25,000 to $35,000 or more for a base unit that runs individual tests that cost about $25 each.
Robiscek says the MRSA program at his hospital costs $600,000 to $1 million a year to test about 40,000 patients but has cut the number of MRSA infections from more than 100 a year to about 50. Each infection adds about $30,000 to the cost of treatment, he says, "so our hospital administration feels in addition to the human cost, there has been a financial benefit."
After seeing similar results at an MRSA prevention program at the VA Pittsburgh health care System, the Veterans Administration ordered all its 139 hospitals to begin, as of March 15, phasing in MRSA prevention programs. Under the VA plan, patients are tested on admission, again when moved to a different unit in the hospital, and on discharge. MRSA carriers are isolated, and precautions are required.
Rajiv Jain, chief of staff at the Pittsburgh VA, who also leads the national program, says results in Pittsburgh have been "dramatic. There has been a 50% to 60% reduction in infection rates."
Other hospitals are planning or expanding programs. Since January, the University of Maryland has been testing patients who have been admitted to intensive care units or who have been in a health facility in the past year. The program costs about $500,000, says Harold Standiford, director of infection control, but MRSA rates "are down by 30% already."
MRSA, especially the community strain, is "a bad bug. It's extremely virulent," he says. And "it's coming to our doorsteps. We want to keep it out."
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