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DEADLY INFECTION NOT CARRIED ON GI'S SKIN,
APPEARS
TO BE CONTRACTED IN HOSPITALS -- Research done
in
Iraq indicates Acinetobacter infections are
nosocomial.
Acinetobacter
Background here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfMAY07/nf050607-2.htm
This is truly amazing research. It
means that the troops are not carrying this infection around with them,
they are catching it in the hospitals.
The next step for the researchers is to
find out how it gets into a hospital environment.
Story here...
http://www.eurekalert.org/
pub_releases/2007-05/uocp-usi051407.php
Story below:
---------------
Contact: Amy Jenkins
amy@jenkinspr.com
312-836-0613
University of Chicago Press Journals
US soldiers in Iraq fighting drug-resistant
bacteria after injuries
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- US soldiers in Iraq do not carry the bacteria
responsible for difficult-to-treat wound infections found in military
hospitals treating soldiers wounded in Iraq, according to an article to
be published electronically on Wednesday, May 16, 2007, in Infection
Control and Hospital Epidemiology. The article will appear in the June
issue of the journal.
Investigator Matthew E. Griffith, MD, (Brooke Army Medical Center at
Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas) and colleagues found that
drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii complex
are not present on the skin of uninjured soldiers in Iraq, as had been
expected.
A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is an important cause of
trauma-associated and hospital-acquired infection throughout the world,
and multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria have been infecting
injured soldiers treated in US military hospitals in Iraq.
"We need to know where these infections are coming from," explains Dr.
Griffith. "One of the possibilities was that A. calcoaceticus-baumannii
was on the soldiers’ skin before injury and simply traveled to the wound
site to cause the infection. However, our research shows that this is
not the case."
Although the consequences of the outbreak A. calcoaceticus-baumannii
infection in US military hospitals serving soldiers wounded in Iraq are
well described, the source of the outbreak is unknown.
To determine whether A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is carried on
the skin of healthy US Army soldiers, investigators cultured skin swab
specimens from 102 active military soldiers stationed at a base in Iraq.
The base is in an environment representative of all Iraqi environments
with desert, irrigated farmland and an urban area nearby.
Several previous reports have described skin carriage of Acinetobacter
species in healthy people. The carriage rates have been found to vary
with climate and geography. These reports may not be generalizable to US
Army soldiers in Iraq, which has an extremely dry climate.
"If skin carriage is not the source of A. calcoaceticus-baumannii
complex infection, then the other possibility is that the bacteria
contaminates the wounds after injury," explains Dr. Griffith. "This
could happen while an injured soldier is awaiting treatment or in the
hospital during or after receiving medical care."
"This observation refutes the concept that the bacterium is acquired
prior to injury among soldiers deployed to Iraq," Dr. Griffith says. "In
addition, this observation adds to the ever growing body of evidence
implicating nosocomial transmission as the cause of the ongoing military
outbreak."
Because of this and similar research, an increased emphasis on infection
control has been put in place in the US military’s combat hospitals.
###
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology provides original,
peer-reviewed scientific articles for anyone involved with an infection
control or epidemiology program in a hospital or healthcare facility.
Written by infection control practitioners and epidemiologists and
guided by an editorial board composed of the nation's leaders in the
field, ICHE provides a critical forum for this vital information.
---------------
Larry Scott --
