Superbug Sweeps San Diego

Superbug Sweeps San Diego
Bacteria Has Potentially Fatal Effects

SAN DIEGO -- Bug bites are common in summer but a new super bug sweeping San Diego could have potentially fatal effects.

Local hospital emergency rooms are being jammed by patients who've been bitten by a strain of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Although the bites look they come from spiders, officials say they're much more harmful. Even worse: They're spreading so fast that the local emergency rooms are reporting at least one new infection per day.

The bacteria is called "metha-cillin resistant staph aureus'' -- or "MRSA" for short and while it looks harmless under a microscope, Scripps Mercy hospital epidemiologist Frank Myers III said it can potentially deadly.

"This particular strain is particularly nasty because it can make us sick it can cause skin infections and it's also resistant to many common antibiotics we use to treat it," Myers said.

According to Myers, the strain has been growing in strength in just the last few years.

"In 2002, we saw no cases of community associated MRSA. In 2006, we're now seeing over a case a day in our emergency room," Myers said.

MRSA is particularly fast growing but spreads even more rapidly -- and that's what worries Myers.

"We've seen family members have these boils be treated inappropriately, sharing towels or bars of soap and those can spread very effectively in household setting so instead of one case we now see an entire family," Myers said.

If left untreated, MRSA can disfigure and sometimes be fatal. The current strain in San Diego originated locally and is spreading throughout the community at a very high rate.

Although the strain is resistant to most antibiotics, Myers says some still do work but warns if you see a strange bite that doesn't seem to be healing to see a doctor right away.

"Ask [the doctor to] do a culture on it and then follow completely the guidelines for antibiotic use.

MRSA used to be spread a lot in locker rooms, especially among football players and wrestling teams. Now, Myers said babies are getting through a diaper rash and other family members are spreading it just by casual touch.

How True!

We're seeing it in my ER here in Southern Oregon. EVERYBODY comes in saying that they've got a 'spider-bite'. Well it ain't from spiders. And it can get really nasty appearing too.

I'm seeing it just about EVERY shift now these last few weeks. My Docs are prescribing two different antibiotics to combat this scourge.

BFC

My brother got the MRSA bug in a hospital in S. Florida. Not the community type but when you get this bug, who cares. He has been in ICU for over a month. The bug started at a catheter site and spread to his blood stream then went to the lungs causing pnuemonia. He has been on a respirator until just 3 days ago. He is now in a pulmonary care/rehab hospital so hopefully the worst is over.

OK, since this is a bacteria

it seems it would be easier to deal with than a virus, right?

so are there any special countermeasures to dealing with this bug?

and why just San diego? (fairbanks just answered that, so its across the country if its in florida)

A good defense would be high doses of vitamin C.

Its everywhere. I cannot count the number of patients we have with it. Respiratory. Urine. Wound.
So many on isolation because of it.
And imagine how many have it and don't know it. Then they hug their loved ones..shake hands with friends...cook our food...cough cough...draining wound...seep seep from clothing and then placed in a laundromat on a table or a washing machine...trying on clothes at a store...

So do they know where this bug originated?

South America, Mexico?

David

It "came " from the inside of all of our noses and the overprescribing of antibiotics.

We see it all the time in EMS and Home Health Care. My neighbor from across the road nearly lost a finger last week from it.

>>Local hospital emergency rooms are being jammed by patients <<

and then this...

>>local emergency rooms are reporting at least one new infection per day.<<

Perhaps "jammed" is a bit of an overstatement?

Peachy2K said:

A good defense would be high doses of vitamin C.

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Plus other vitamins and minerals, Peachy, the body needs several of them to fight infections. I'd say a good multivitamin/mineral with substantial amounts of C and zinc would be a good start, in addition to eliminating processed foods from the diet, cooking and baking from scratch.

A 28-yr-old friend of my daughter got MRSA last fall. She had the first pustule, took antibiotics, it finally disappeared - and then, a month later, she had an eruption of them, went to the ER thinking it was a rash. Within 24 hours she was unconscious with pneumonia. She had pustules in her lungs, up her spinal column, eventually into her brain and - worst of all - behind her eyeballs. She was on a respirator for weeks, far beyond the usual period, then had to have a trach to breathe after that. They kept her sedated for those weeks, so she was mostly out of it.

Her mother, who had no money, slept in the hospital waiting room and ate chips out of machines for six weeks, before they finally moved her daughter out of ICU and into a room.

She ended up losing practically all of her sight in one eye and most of it in the other. She sees shapes, but that's about it - and she was a computer techie. She can no longer drive, etc. And then, about a month after going home, had to have her gall bladder removed.

The good news is that she lived, altho it didn't look like she would for quite a while.

This is one horrible, vicious, destructive bacterium.

DuckandCover said:

>>Local hospital emergency rooms are being jammed by patients <<

and then this...

>>local emergency rooms are reporting at least one new infection per day.<<

Perhaps "jammed" is a bit of an overstatement?

Click to expand...

When this goes systemic, which is often the second wave of this infection, the patient requires extensive ICU services, a ventilator, etc. With one person a day getting infected in one city, it won't be long until all available resources are tied up treating these patients in ICU's.

This is nothing to joke about--a dispatcher about 3 years ago had it. First thought it was a spider bite, but it really erupted. Went to Kaiser. Given antibiotics told to go home. Treated the eruption with analgesics. 2 weeks go buy. Wound is still there. Not feeling good. Goes back to Kaiser. They up the dosage of antibiotics and send him home. He's good enough to come into work, but still not feeling well. Wound finally heals up after a month. We think that's the end of it. 6 months later, in a completely different area of the body, more wounds erupt. He now knows something is in his blood--demands Kaiser do more tests. He's in hospital for a couple of days--give me the CORRECT diagnosis.

Several months later, ANOTHER dispatcher, who already has health issues anyway and is not the healthiest person on the planet, comes down with it. Lands her in the hospital for 3 weeks in ICU. She almost died.

So of course, close quarters and all, dispatchers are freaking out. Everyone wipes down concoles everyday and we don't share anything. VERY VERY VERY bad mojo on this stuff, and if you don't get diagnosed correctly, and it gets into your blood, YOU MAY DIE.

We, too, are seeing it more and more in our ER. It used to be just nursing home or debilitated patients, now more and more healthy people are showing up with "spider bites". We are just assuming it is MRSA now instead of a simple infection and treating accordingly. Yes, it is a nasty bug and yes it can kill you if it goes badly.

Dixielee said:

We, too, are seeing it more and more in our ER. It used to be just nursing home or debilitated patients, now more and more healthy people are showing up with "spider bites". We are just assuming it is MRSA now instead of a simple infection and treating accordingly. Yes, it is a nasty bug and yes it can kill you if it goes badly.

Click to expand...

This thing just scares me spitless. I first encountered it ten years ago in the nursing home when few had heard of it. At first I thought, well just old people here are getting it--but then one 30 yr.-old workers contracted it. Since then I have had a friend in her early 40's lose two legs to it (a diabetic so she was a fairly easy target), and go septic which nearly took her life. To think that people in the general population are having problems with it, does NOT give me warm/fuzzy feelings.

BigFootsCousin said:

We're seeing it in my ER here in Southern Oregon. EVERYBODY comes in saying that they've got a 'spider-bite'. Well it ain't from spiders. And it can get really nasty appearing too.

I'm seeing it just about EVERY shift now these last few weeks. My Docs are prescribing two different antibiotics to combat this scourge.

BFC

Click to expand...

O.K. BFC...give it up. What are the two antibiotics and the dosage if you will? Thanking you in advance.

What are the most likely vectors for spreading this disease? How long does this bug survive in the open on surfaces? In sunlight, etc. . . ?

OOOOH, up in Seattle it's been sweeping one of the jails ALONG with flesh-eating bacteria.

Contagion in the Jail
Inmates, their families, and even elected officials wonder if the county health department is taking the presence of flesh-eating disease seriously enough.
By Rick Anderson

The lockup downtown, where germs are free to come and go.
Marcy SuttonCounty jail and health officials insist their aging 1,700-bed downtown King County Correctional Facility is safe, and they're doing their best to keep it disease-free. But two superbugs have been discovered at the jail in the past 23 months, one of them continuously sweeping the population—and both combining to cause an inmate's death. That's led anxious inmates, family members, and county and city council members to suspect the jail's health safeguards are insufficient. King County Council member David Irons considers the situation serious enough to call it "a new public health threat" for those inside and outside the facility.

The diseases are necrotizing fasciitis, better known as flesh-eating disease, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection commonly called MRSA. They led to the 2004 death of a drug user serving a short sentence for theft. (See "A Jail Shakedown," Nov. 2.) The deceased inmate's family blames his death in part on the jail's negligence. It turns out that a girlfriend of that inmate, who was serving a similar sentence at the same time at the jail, died from flesh-eating disease a month later, shortly after her release. Their similar causes of death have not been previously reported. Jail officials do not see a link between the jail and the two deaths, but they never substantially investigated either case.

The spread of MRSA, in particular, has some officials alarmed. "An untreated infection of MRSA can cause swelling, boils, blisters, fever, pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and eventually loss of limbs and even death," says Irons, a six-year member of the county Board of Health. Because MRSA has quietly plagued the jail for several years, he says, he also worries that over time it "is disproportionately affecting low- income and minority members of our community" who are jailed and might later carry the bug outside.

Like flesh-eating disease, MRSA is a superbug, resistant to traditional antibiotics, that can cause severe reactions, usually after a strain of bacteria enters the body though an opening or break in the skin. MRSA is a virulent staph infection that thrives in close populations such as jails, prisons, and medical facilities. To varying degrees, it has sickened hundreds of King County jail staff and inmates in recent years, officials say. In the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pa., this year, two female inmates died from MRSA after catching the flu, authorities there said. As was the case in the death of the male King County inmate, MRSA and flesh-eating disease also work together. According to a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine this year, 14 recent Los Angeles cases of necrotizing fasciitis were traced to MRSA bacteria, indicating a troubling pairing of the two superbugs.

Flesh-eating disease is not itself considered contagious, although the bacteria that cause it can be transferred by casual contact, experts say. The danger comes when it enters the body through a wound or needle puncture, for example. If not detected early, the disease can rapidly lead to toxic shock, amputations, and death, as it did in the case of the two King County inmates.

Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen says he's trying to learn more about jail health conditions and is awaiting a report from Public Health– Seattle & King County, which provides jail health services. Rasmussen recently met privately with a jail staffer who expressed "significant concerns" about the facility's medical services, Rasmussen says. Nurses and corrections officers say the jail is understaffed, lacks an efficient medical record-keeping system, and puts inmates at risk unnecessarily. County Council member Irons has also asked the health department for more information on jail conditions. In particular, he "immediately" wants a written update on what response the department is taking to combat MRSA. He says he worries about the likelihood of the general public being infected and, in a letter to health officials Nov. 16, warned, "This disregard for the health and safety of our own [jail] staff as well as the citizens in our custody could become a serious liability for King County." Several inmates have already filed lawsuits.

KING-TV recently reported that MRSA has been a growing concern, but the jail and the health department have been slow to control bacterial spread and impose stricter sanitary precautions. KING cited a 2003 jail supervisor's memo that stated he was "extremely concerned about our lack of policies and procedures" in handling MRSA. Last year, a jail-health doctor cited a "lack of consistency in our management of MRSA."

The health department says MRSA is under control in the jail and thinks the flesh-eating deaths were rarities and not necessarily caused or abetted by incarceration or lack of treatment. "Necrotizing fasciitis is not a reportable condition, and we do not specifically track the condition in the jail," says health department spokesperson James Apa. "However, we believe it to be exceedingly rare in the community, and we are not immediately aware of any additional cases in the jail with either staff or inmates within the past two years."

According to police, jail, court, and medical examiner records, the two county jail inmates died of diseases in January and February 2004. Patrick A. Harrington Jr., 40, a SeaTac mechanic who was arrested for shoplifting meat from a West Seattle Safeway, complained of shortness of breath on Jan. 24, a few days after his 20-day jailing for theft. Harrington had an infected left arm and died the next day at Harborview Medical Center. An autopsy determined the cause was flesh-eating disease and MRSA, linked to chronic injection drug abuse. His family questions in part those findings and the jail's actions, claiming officials negligently ignored Harrington's request for medical attention. They claim he had not used a needle in 10 days and had no open wound when jailed. According to jail and hospital documents, his wound spread to 10 inches and was leaking for two days before he was aided, the family says.

Then Harrington's girlfriend died. Laura J. Serrano, 41, of Seattle, who also was arrested for the shoplifting, was released from jail for a day on Feb. 2 to attend Harrington's funeral. Mourners were told they couldn't touch the body, a family member says, for fear of picking up the bacteria. Serrano returned to her cell and completed her sentence on Feb. 12. Within a week, she was ailing and wound up at Harborview, where she died early Feb. 24. Besides the disease, needle-use was also a factor in her death, says the medical examiner. It is unclear if jail officials, who were aware of Harrington's death, knew a second inmate had died of the same disease. A jail spokesperson referred questions to the health department.

"We are vigilant for necrotizing fasciitis at King County Jail, given the high number of injection drug users booked into the facility," says the health department's Dr. Benjamin Sanders, the jail's health director. But, "Merely being in the same cell with an inmate patient who is later diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis is not a risk factor for the condition." If two people share a needle, they obviously increase their risks, he notes. And for the disease to take hold, "there is nearly always some direct insertion of the bacteria deep into body tissues," Sanders says.

The National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation, however, emphasizes that chances for infection are more general— it takes only a pinprick. The disease is also known to be spontaneous. In medical literature, the foundation says, "We can personally tell you about people who developed NF after a C-section, after abdominal surgery, after scratching a rash, after giving birth vaginally, from a tiny scratch, after bumping a leg with a golf bag, after a friendly punch in the arm from a buddy, after a little cut on the finger, after a cut on the foot, after a rug burn, after having a routine blood draw in a physical exam, after a broken arm, and after a broken leg, and from no known trauma at all." Adds the foundation: "Let it be said that there is no sure prevention."

randerson@seattleweekly.com

from http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0549/051207_news_jail.php

fairbanksb said:

My brother got the MRSA bug in a hospital in S. Florida. Not the community type but when you get this bug, who cares. He has been in ICU for over a month. The bug started at a catheter site and spread to his blood stream then went to the lungs causing pnuemonia. He has been on a respirator until just 3 days ago. He is now in a pulmonary care/rehab hospital so hopefully the worst is over.

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I will be praying that your brother gets completely well.

Soap and water are your first line of defense. If you get any sort of infection, even a sniffle, you need epsom salts (magnesium). Follow instructions on the label, except mix it with lemonade to kill the terrible taste. Doctors who study such things tell us that epsom salts is as good as a dose of penicillin, with NO dangerous side effects. Epsom salts also has a laxative effect, but when you have taken enough your stool becomes normal.

I remember seeing it spread thru a nursing home I worked for. It started in one patient on a particular hall, and thanx to one nurse aide's poor Universal Precautions, everyone with a bedsore on that hall got it within a week. Of course, if he'd have taken care of his patients like he was supposed to, the bedsores wouldn't have been there, but that's another story altogether. OMG, the smell was horrible. We lost 4 patients within a month because of it, then lost a fifth patient due to same said NA arguing with patient and causing him to have a heart attack.

My neighbor has been suffering with some sort of staph infection for a few months now, and when she went to the dr, they didn't do anything about it. She has like 3 boils behind her ear. She's had her period 6 out of the past 8 weeks. I think they are connected. I told her if it is MRSA and she has further problems, she should sue.

Here is my reply on another forum where the members were discussing the advisibility of providing "paper booties" for passengers asked to remove their shoes and STAND BAREFOOT on a public carpet where HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF OTHER PASSENGERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD HAVE SHED THEIR SHOES AND STOOD BAREFOOT:

When several members objected to either taxes or ticket prices including the cost of those "paper booties", I reacted.

For you people who said you don't want your taxes or ticket to include charges for "paper booties" for people going through the "take your shoes off" portion of the security check:

LET ME OPEN YOUR EYES.
Those HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of passengers from all over the world who traverse through that security check gate and remove their shoes ON THAT CARPETING deposit every kind of germ known to man, and a few not yet identified pathogens.

Some of the cleanest looking, DIABETIC PASSENGERS (Of which the world's traveling public holds a significant percentage, OFTEN HAVE INFECTED, PUS FILLED AND WEEPING SORES ON THE BOTTOM OF THEIR FEET, AND MANY DO NOT EVEN KNOW THEY HAVE THOSE OPEN, PUS EXUDING SORES!!!! I know, diabetes is rampant in MY family and we have to cross check DAILY for new lesions because THEIR FEET ARE NUMB!! Several other diseases COULD put CONTAGIOUS TB, FLESH EATING, MRSA RESISTANT or OTHER GERMS from foot lesions on YOU also.

NOW DO YOU WANT TO WALK THROUGH A STICKY, PUS ENCRUSTED CARPET BAREFOOT OR PAY THE QUARTER TO COVER AND PROTECT YOUR FEET OR SOCKS????

for those who responded to the above with "no big deal, just wear socks" I responded:

Just wait till you end up in emergency at the end of your flight with a MRSA infection later FIGHTING FOR YOUR VERY LIFE, your entire body and bloodstream septic and resistant to most ALL antibiotics in our medical armory against disease.
Or, have a nice big dose of NECROTIZING FASCITIS (flesh eating disease) start working its way turning your arms and legs black eating them away and perhaps you won't scoff at the danger presented and think twice about even TOUCHING socks that have touched that carpet let alone wearing them for the duration of a long flight where a hot sweaty foot can multiply any bacteria you picked up on your socks a millionfold. Remember, YOU WON'T HAVE THAT "PURELL bacteriocidal GEL" with you on the plane anymore to kill any germs on your hands!(or elsewhere)

If my post sounds disgusting it is because it describes a DANGEROUS, DISGUSTING REALITY.

If you DO et any type of flesh wound I would recomend smothering it in Bacitracin as this has been found to KILL the MRSA bug (according to an ER physician I work with and a few others.)
But the SIZE of the wound also must be taken into account according to them.
Its not gonna hurt anything so what the heck.

Also dabbing some of the Bacitracin inside your nostrils is NOT a bad idea either at times.