Arkansas Hospital Shuts Down, Quarantines Intensive Care Unit Due to Uncontrolled Sta

[Cindy S.]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307700,00.html

[Rmf3175]

:twitch

[SetApart]

unreal...

[JenGC]

I lost a co-worker to a staph infection. I didn't think too much about it until now. I have heard that this is just running ramped and to be careful in gyms and things to that nature.

[Galoutofdixie]

This is not Drug resistant Staph, (MRSA) but another type of bacteria. Still, very scary!

The multi-drug-resistant bacteria known as acinetobacter has affected six critically ill patients so far, four of them in intensive care and the other two in the general medical population, Chopra said.

The six patients were infected by the organism and have been receiving intravenous antibiotics as treatment, according to Chopra. So far, he said, they're "responding well."

It is not known how the patients were exposed to the pathogen acinetobacter.

The strain bears similarities to so-called "staph" infections but is unrelated, according to Chopra. It tends to afflict very sick people, can be fatal and is the third most common bacterial infection in hospital ICUs.

"It's not a super bug," Chopra said. "It's got absolutely no relation to staph. But it is a dangerous bacteria."

Though the infection wasn't caused by the more common methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus bacteria that leads to staph outbreaks, this acinetobacter strain shows similar drug resistance and, like staph, is "present in the environment — and present everywhere," Chopra explained.

"The difference between this and staph is that this tends to attack individuals only when they are very sick," he said. "It can start from any pore opening and can cause skin wounds, soft tissue wounds and pneumonia. It can be very serious

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307700,00.html

[elac]

The last I knew, that was a really good hospital. This kind of thing can happen anywhere, I guess.