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Sunday 21 December 2008

MRSA at Scottish special care baby unit

This following BBC report echoes the situation in Canada at
Charlottetown PEI.

One of the staff will almost certainly be a carrier or maybe a mother.

To save time they should check any staff member that has associations with either pigs or pork.

The hospital in Charlottetown has refused to release any information other that that the source was staff member(s).

It looks like the Gardiner Hypothesis, that MRSA in humans follows PMWS - Circovirus in pigs is very close to being proved.

Let's see if Scotland does better. They already have the police investigating C.Diff outbreaks in their hospitals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7794370.stm

Babies tested positive for MRSA

The superbug was said to have "colonised" the babies

Six babies being treated at a special care baby unit in Glasgow have tested positive for MRSA, it has emerged.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed it was found during routine testing at the Southern General Hospital.

The MRSA bug was said to have "colonised" the infants, meaning it was on their skin but did not harm them. The babies have since been discharged.

A spokeswoman said the unit was not closed at any time and extra infection control measures were in place.

MRSA stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, but is shorthand for any strain of Staphylococcus bacteria which is resistant to one or more conventional antibiotics.

Many people naturally carry it in their throats and it can cause a mild infection in a healthy patient.

If it infects someone who is already ill or weak, it can kill.

Thursday 18 December 2008

MRSA Cover - Up - Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

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There is a well oiled cover-up going on here.

It is the MRSA-PMWS ridden pigs in the immediate area.

MRSA is arriving via the staff and patients.

They are checking the staff, but are refusing to release any results.

It's a big secret, but in accordance with the "Gardiner Hypothesis." Most MRSA epidemics follow PMWS-Circovirus epidemics in pig herds. Unravelled in England.

To tackle MRSA in hospitals, you must tackle PMWS in pigs.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2008/12/18/pe-mrsa-surgery.html

MRSA outbreak delays surgeries at Charlottetown hospital
Last Updated: Thursday, December 18, 2008 7:19 AM AT

CBC News
Twenty elective gynecological surgeries have been postponed due to arecent MRSA outbreak in the nursery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown.

Officials at the hospital said the methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, an antibiotic resistant bacteria, appear to be under control now. Eleven babies born at the hospital tested positive for MRSA this fall. None became ill, and there have been no new cases in more than two weeks.

The surgeries have been rescheduled as a precaution. Rick Adams, executive director of the QEH, told CBC News Wednesday that women who've had gynecological surgery and need to stay in hospital usually recover in the nursery. The decision to reschedule was made to reduce exposure to MRSA and free up nursing staff to work on infection control.

"None of them are urgent or emergency, so given the situation that we've been dealing with in Unit 4 over the last number of weeks, we deemed it in the best interest of our patients to postpone till January," said Adams.

"Within several days of the postponement, they were all provided new dates for their surgeries."Adams said if there are new cases of MRSA, those dates could also change.
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Sunday 14 December 2008

New "rampant" strains of MRSA in England linked to livestock.

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1213/1229035665688.html?via=mr

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Doctor warns on rampant strains of MRSA

DR MUIRIS HOUSTON, Medical Correspondent in London

NEW STRAINS of the MRSA superbug now emerging in community settings could make it impossible to control MRSA outbreaks in hospitals, a European infectious disease expert has said.

Dr Robert Skov, of the National Centre for Antimicrobials and Infection Control in Copenhagen, Denmark, told a conference on healthcare associated infection that "today's community associated MRSA will be tomorrow's hospital acquired MRSA".

The clinical microbiologist warned that community associated MRSA will increasingly be introduced into hospitals by patients carrying the bug, where this is not detected on admission.

He told the Lancet infectious diseases conference in London yesterday that the spread of MRSA in the community could impair or render control of MRSA in hospitals impossible.

Dr Skov also pointed to evidence of a large reservoir of MRSA in animals for food production that, following transmission to humans, will represent a serious threat to the control of MRSA.

Studies from the US and Greece have shown a displacement of hospital associated MRSA by community acquired versions of the drug-resistant bacteria. Recent statistics for Greece show community acquired MRSA now accounts for one quarter of all hospital cases of the bug.

"Community acquired MRSA must be taken seriously and suppressed," he said.

Prof Gary French, professor of medical microbiology at Kings College,London, told doctors the prevalence of MRSA in hospital patients' bloodstreams was still increasing worldwide. He described how the introduction of mandatory reporting in the NHS had increased the notification of hospital acquired MRSA by 50 per cent.

The latest figures show there are 70,000 serious MRSA infections in hospitals in England.

"Some 3 - 5 per cent of patients admitted to hospitals here are colonised by MRSA," he said, creating a "revolving door" which made infection control very difficult. Prof French warned that new community acquired MRSA organisms were doubling each year in the UK.

Prof Mark Wilcox, professor of medical microbiology at the Universityof Leeds, an expert in Clostridium difficile (C diff), another problem hospital bug, told the conference that antibiotic use increases the risk of C diff infection, especially the use of the cephalosporin family and the drug clindamycin.