Drug-resistant staph infections on the decline in U.S. hospitals

[HuckleB]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drug-resistant-staph-infections-on-2010-08-10

"The bacterial scourge methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can cause life-threatening infections that are difficult to beat with antibiotics. Earlier this year, hospitals in France reported a decline in the rates of the infections after 15 years of concerted control efforts, and ongoing analyses from the U.K. have shown decreasing incidence as well. A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the number of health care-related MRSA bloodstream infections in nine cities across the country dropped substantially between 2005 and 2008.

Although S. aureus lives in relative biotic harmony on about a third of all people, its drug-resistant varieties can evolve rapidly and spread easily in both health care and, more recently, community settings.

The new analysis, published online August 10 in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, assessed 21,503 reported cases of MRSA infection in selected metropolitan areas of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota New York, Oregon and Tennessee. Some 17,508 of these infections were linked to contact with health care settings. The researchers, led by Alexander Kallen of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, found that after adjusting for age and other variables, the number of invasive MRSA infections contracted while in the hospital declined an average of 9.4 percent each year—28 percent in total—during the course of the four-year period. And the number of infections acquired through overall contact with health care settings declined 5.7 percent per year—some 17 percent summed.

The researchers behind the new report suggest one possible explanation for the decrease could be the greater "dissemination of MRSA prevention practices in U.S. hospitals," such as increasing education about how to detect MRSA and prevent its transmission within the hospital. But authors of an editorial published in the same issue of JAMA point out that many of the declines reported both in the U.S. and Europe seem to have started before many of these formal programs were instituted. "The observed declines in MRSA reported may instead be the result of general infection control efforts, such as wider adoption of alcohol-based hand rubs, improved hand hygiene compliances," the authors, Eli Perencevich and Daniel Diekema, both of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, suggested.

..."


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Improvement is positive. Let's hope it continues to improve.

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

1. Wow, imagine that! Improved hand hygiene slows spread of skin infections.

[Warpy]

2. One thing that helped immeasurably is the hand sanitizer

in every single room. While we couldn't always wash our hands when we were doing clean things like handing out pills, we did use that hand sanitizer because that could be done on the fly, and we did have to fly due to staff cuts. Just squirt, rub, grab a towel, wipe, all done on the run.

It doesn't matter how you kill a bug as long as it can be done. That sanitizer made a huge difference for us and our patients.