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From ABCNews:
Three Chicago-area children have died of a toxic shock syndrome-like illness caused by a superbug they caught in the community and not in the hospital, where the germ is usually found.
The cases show that this already worrisome staph germ has become even more dangerous by acquiring the ability to cause this shock-like condition.
“There’s a new kid on the block,” said Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, referring to the added strength of the superbug known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
“The fact that there are three community-acquired staph aureus cases is really scary,” continued Bartlett, an infectious disease specialist.
The Chicago deaths were described in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
And if that’s not enough for you, read the full text of the report, here are the pathological results:
Postmortem examination revealed necrotizing bronchopneumonia and bilateral adrenal hemorrhage in all three patients. All patients had similar gross findings at autopsy. Involvement of the skin ranged from petechiae to desquamating, dusky rashes. Gross and histologic findings of bilateral necrotizing bronchopneumonia, pulmonary edema, and adrenal hemorrhage were present in all patients (Figure 1). In all patients the lungs had many demonstrable gram-positive cocci in clusters occasionally found in the walls of pulmonary vasculature. The severity of adrenal hemorrhage ranged from about 30 percent to complete hemorrhagic infarction. Pathological findings indicative of overwhelming sepsis and disseminated intravascular coagulation were also noted. None of the patients had any gross or microscopical anatomic evidence of endocarditis or myocarditis. Patient 1 had anasarca, mild-to-moderate cerebral edema, splenic and hepatic congestion, and petechial hemorrhages on the surfaces of the heart, lungs, kidneys, and intestinal serosa. Patient 2 had epicardial hemorrhages, acute tubular necrosis, and macrovesicular steatosis; brain dissection was not performed. Patient 3 had anasarca, petechial hemorrhages on the liver surface, glomerular fibrin microthrombi, and mild cerebral edema.
Scary stuff, eh?
From 11 Alive News:
A super bug able to resist antibiotics is now even more dangerous because it is reported to cause fatal infections that can spread within a community – not just hospitals.
On Thursday, the Georgia Division of Health convened a task force to strategize a plan for attacking the bug.
Since 2000, the new strain of bug has been blamed for killing three children in Chicago, according to the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The report claims the children caught the deadly new strain while out in their communities.
Is it just me or are there an increasing number of “weird” infections popping up all over the place?
[Hat Tip: Just A Girl]
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What’s really going on is common bacterial organisms are mutating due to the overuse and misuse of antibotics. When a person takes an antibotic and doesnt finish it, any bacteria that survived will become resilient to that drug. The person will either carry that germ or become sick again and be treated with a different antibotic, eventually in some people the bacteria will not be eradicated by any known drug and thus be called a “super bug” example MRSA. I think the lesson is don’t take antibotics unless you really need them and if you do take them make sure you take them all. Otherwise we could end up in a world where strep throat could be a death sentence.
Comment by Jeanine on Dec 3rd, 2006 @ 02:06