- ATLANTA - A staph germ that has resisted medicine's drug of last resort
has shown up for the first time in the United States and may soon be unstoppable,
the government said Thursday.
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- ''The timer is going off,'' said Dr.
William Jarvis, a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. ''We were concerned it would emerge here, it has emerged
here and we are concerned we're going to see it popping up in more places.''
A strain of staphylococcus aureus bacteria found in a Michigan man in July
showed an intermediate level of resistance to vancomycin - one step from
immunity to the drug, the CDC said. The CDC and the Michigan department
of health would not identify the man or say where he lives.
-
- The patient, who suffered kidney failure,
had been taking vancomycin for a year and a half for a recurring infection
from an abdominal catheter used for kidney dialysis. He was successfully
treated with a combination of drugs, including vancomycin, Jarvis said.
The Michigan discovery came three months after a similar resistant strain
was found in Japan.
-
- In May, the CDC reported that a 4-month-old
Japanese infant developed staph from a boil after heart surgery. That strain
of staph also showed an intermediate resistance to vancomycin, and the
baby was treated with other drugs.
-
- U.S. hospitals were alerted to watch
for the strain here.
-
- ''Now that you have two in such a short
time, there will be heightened concern,'' said Richard Schwalbe, director
of clinical microbiology at the University of Maryland. Staph bacteria
are the No. 1 cause of hospital infections. They are blamed for about 13
percent of the nation's 2 million hospital infections each year, according
to the CDC. Overall, the 2 million infections kill 60,000 to 80,000 people.
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- The bacteria can collect on clothing,
blankets, walls and medical equipment. Hospital workers can pass them on
by hand, and they can cling to tubes inserted into the body. To combat
their spread, many hospitals across the country have restricted use of
their most potent antibiotics and isolated their sickest patients.
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- Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology
at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said
there's no reason hospitals can't eradicate resistant staph. ''These are
unique, special strains that can be eradicated,'' said Haley, former chief
of the CDC's hospital infections branch. ''There needs to be aggressive
surveillance in hospitals. Once you see it, don't let it stay and spread
around the hospital until you can't get rid of it.''
-
- For patients, the rise of drug-resistant
germs means that the medicine they get for their infection may not make
them better, forcing doctors to switch to one or more of the 100 antibiotics
now on the market.
-
- However, many fear the time is growing
near when there will be no alternative antibiotic to turn to.
-
- ''There's going to be a lot of throwing
up of arms with doctors saying now we have to live with this,'' Haley said.
''That is not true. We must fight it vigorously. We are also going to have
to be much more stingy with our use of vancomycin.''
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