Drug-Resistant Bacteria On The Rise
Posted on: Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 11:07 CST
Drug-resistant bacteria infections have increased by 90 percent in the US since 1999, and new strains have been discovered outside of hospitals, according to researchers.
Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues discovered two new strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in patients that appear to have been acquired outside of hospitals.
Laxminarayan’s team conducted tests on a nationwide network of 300 microbiology labs in the US.
"We found during 1999-2006 that the percentage of S. aureus infections resistant to methicillin increased more than 90 percent, or 10 percent a year, in outpatients admitted to U.S. hospitals," researchers wrote.
"This increase was caused almost entirely by community-acquired MRSA strains, which increased more than 33 percent annually."
Researchers have known that strains of MRSA have been carried by patients outside of hospitals, but they were unsure of where they originated.
The team noted that more people are being diagnosed with strains that originated outside of hospitals, but these strains were not replacing the known hospital strains.
"Our findings have implications for local and national policies aimed at containing and preventing MRSA," researchers wrote.
"Lastly, infection control policies should take into account the role that outpatients likely play in the spread of MRSA and promote interventions that could prevent spread of MRSA from outpatient areas to inpatient areas," they added.
The study is published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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Posted by Julian Lieb,M.D on 11/25/2009, 16:38 In 1973, Louis Shenkman reported remission of recurrent streptococcal and staphylociccal skin infections in a woman taking lithium. In 1981, I published the first of nine reviews on the immunostimulating and antmicrobial properties of lithium and antidepressants. In this instance, clinical observation was almost forty years ahead of what basic research has yet to solve. A colleague was apt to say, "When clinical progress occurs, research grants relevant to the problem dry up." |
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