Drug-resistant germ escapes hospital confines
Pastor Dale Morgan
Drug-resistant germ escapes hospital confines*
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
Hospitals are trying to protect their patients from a drug-resistant bug
that is growing more common and dangerous.
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, has long been
known as an infection associated with hospitals, where patients are
already sick and vulnerable. A newer strain of MRSA known as "community
associated" has emerged outside hospitals and is causing severe
infections in previously healthy children and adults.
Now some hospitals are starting aggressive programs to keep the bug at
bay. Known as "search and destroy," the programs are relatively untested
in the USA, so they can be seen as an expensive gamble.
At Evanston Northwestern health care outside Chicago, all incoming
patients are tested, and if they are found to carry MRSA, they are
isolated and treated, says epidemiologist Ari Robiscek. Everyone who
enters their rooms wears gloves and a gown.
People can carry MRSA bacteria, usually in their noses or on their skin,
without being sick. But they can pass the bug to uninfected patients and
health workers.
Standard tests take 48 hours to yield results, but newer ones cut that
down to one to two hours. But they're more expensive — $25,000 to
$35,000 or more for a base unit that runs individual tests that cost
about $25 each.
Robiscek says the MRSA program at his hospital costs $600,000 to $1
million a year to test about 40,000 patients but has cut the number of
MRSA infections from more than 100 a year to about 50. Each infection
adds about $30,000 to the cost of treatment, he says, "so our hospital
administration feels in addition to the human cost, there has been a
financial benefit."
After seeing similar results at an MRSA prevention program at the VA
Pittsburgh health care System, the Veterans Administration ordered all
its 139 hospitals to begin, as of March 15, phasing in MRSA prevention
programs. Under the VA plan, patients are tested on admission, again
when moved to a different unit in the hospital, and on discharge. MRSA
carriers are isolated, and precautions are required.
Rajiv Jain, chief of staff at the Pittsburgh VA, who also leads the
national program, says results in Pittsburgh have been "dramatic. There
has been a 50% to 60% reduction in infection rates."
Other hospitals are planning or expanding programs. Since January, the
University of Maryland has been testing patients who have been admitted
to intensive care units or who have been in a health facility in the
past year. The program costs about $500,000, says Harold Standiford,
director of infection control, but MRSA rates "are down by 30% already."
MRSA, especially the community strain, is "a bad bug. It's extremely
virulent," he says. And "it's coming to our doorsteps. We want to keep
it out."
MRSA BY THE NUMBERS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates:
89 million people, or 32.4% of Americans, carry staph bacteria.
2.3 million people, or 0.8%, carry the drug-resistant form, MRSA.
126,000 people are hospitalized each year with MRSA infections.
5,000, at least, die as a result.