"Superbug" Deaths In U.S. May Surpass AIDS

90,000 Americans Get Potentially Deadly Infections From Drug-Resistant Staph Germs, CDC Says

(CBS/AP)  More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.

Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The report shows just how far one form of the staph germ, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.

Dr. Monica Klevens of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that conducted the study, spoke to CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook, putting the numbers into shocking context.

"So what that means," Klevens said, "is that it's the equivalent of having a death related to MRSA about every 30 minutes in the U.S in a year."

The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.

Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections - those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.

Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system - people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.

In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.

The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the MRSA bug. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.

An invasive form of the disease is being blamed for the death Monday of a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior. Doctors said the germ had spread to his kidneys, liver, lungs and muscles around his heart.

The researchers' estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.

Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study.

There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don't know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.

If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS - which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005 - said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.

The results underscore the need for better prevention measures. That includes curbing the overuse of antibiotics and improving hand-washing and other hygiene procedures among hospital workers, said the CDC's Dr. Scott Fridkin, a study co-author.

Dr. LaPook spoke to Judy Tarselli, a hygiene specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, who demonstrated the alcohol-based hand cleansers health workers use there. Tarselli also stressed the importance of this simple precaution.

"Hand hygiene is the single most important thing we can do to stop the transmission of germs that can cause infections in our patients," she said.

Massachusetts General's efforts have paid off. Since their handwashing program started five years ago, Dr. LaPook reports, they've been able to reduce their invasive staph infections - including MSRA - by half.

Some hospitals have also drastically cut infections by first isolating new patients until they are screened for MRSA.

The bacteria don't respond to penicillin-related antibiotics once commonly used to treat them, partly because of overuse. They can be treated with other drugs but health officials worry that their overuse could cause the germ to become resistant to those, too.

Dr. LaPook told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric that people should not immediately ask their doctor for antibiotics and when they are prescribed, patients should get in the habit of asking, "Do I really need to take antibiotics?"

A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients - or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.

Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said the JAMA study emphasizes the broad scope of the drug-resistant staph "epidemic," and highlights the need for a vaccine, which he called "the holy grail of staphylococcal research."

The regions studied were: the Atlanta metropolitan area; Baltimore, Connecticut; Davidson County, Tenn.; the Denver metropolitan area; Monroe County, NY; the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area; Ramsey County, Minn.; and the San Francisco metropolitan area.

[godfriend1]

As a custodial staff member at a the University of Missouri Columbia, I was wondering if there is any study or research on the fact that many custodial operations at large institutions typicaly work extremely under staffed because of position openings, sick leave, holidays, personal days, and vacations.
Our campus custodial staff is typicaly 30% out, and the hospital housekeeping staff is typicaly 40% out.
Since the amount of work we need to do does not change when staff goes lower much of the work does not get done.
Walter Reed hospital cut their custodial staff very drasticly prior to their black mold scandal.
It would be interesting to hear a story about those of us that actually come into these institutions early in the morning and kill and remove bacteria infested material every day.
If it weren''t for us life would be very ugly.

Please help me understand. My 16 yr old son has what looked to be spider bite we kept anti itch cream on. Last night it was huge and big white head painful red swelling. He popped it cleaned it had small hole. He also has what we thought was big zit on face which he drained a week ago and still full red swelled. I saw picks on news last night identical to his arm and face. I freaked went to Website news said. We took him to urgent care this am. Told doc about news he said yes he has it. He also said that he has been getting about 2 cases a week. But it is not life threatening, take these anti-biotic and keep covered that very contagious so go to school make sure no contact to arm or face. I have placed call into our doctor. I am scared I don%u2019t know if I should give him the anti-biotic or what to do PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO. How do I prevent spread and get him healthy. URGENT!!! If any info please contact [e-mail]

RE:Posted by tbevill: Please help me understand. My 16 yr old son has what looked to be spider bite we kept anti itch cream on. Last night it was huge and big white head painful red swelling. He popped it cleaned it had small hole. He also has what we thought was big zit on face which he drained a week ago and still full red swelled. I saw picks on news last night identical to his arm and face. I freaked went to Website news said. We took him to urgent care this am. Told doc about news he said yes he has it. He also said that he has been getting about 2 cases a week. But it is not life threatening, take these anti-biotic and keep covered that very contagious so go to school make sure no contact to arm or face. I have placed call into our doctor. I am scared I don%u2019t know if I should give him the anti-biotic or what to do PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO. How do I prevent spread and get him healthy. URGENT!!! Please if can help info contact me at [e-mail]

[saraclark86]

it did NOT look like a spider bit it looked like a zit/pimple the only thing that was different was that it hurt realy bad, and it was realy hard like i had a small rock under my skin. i went and sat in some really hot water and epson salt untill it opened. when it did it just ran yellow and green puss the doctor gave me some cream called bactraband it is a cream i put it on it and kept it covered with new bandaids about every 5 hours always kept my hands washed and it went away i got it 3 more times after that and did the same thing everytime and they always went away. the only thing is we never knew where i got it from the only realy public place that i ever went was to my school. that just goes to show you can get it anywhere.

[saraclark86]

hey everyone im new to this but i felt like i needed to put my two cents in i myself have had stapf. it is so bad. the first time i got it we did not know what it was. my ant is a doctor and she told me to just go to the doctor and just get it checked so i did and they did not realy know what it was. i live in small town.they gave me some cream to put on it and i whent home. the next day i was running a fever and it had grown to the size of a lemon so i went back to the doctor and they had to lance it and pack it. they gave me an antibiotic and it got better. the next time i knew what to look for it started out as a little red bump mine did NOT

[pghlady3]

thank you Mr. Bush, Janet P. and everyone else who does not see the illegal immigrant problem. PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE DIFFERENT DISEASES. Thanks for all the illegals and thanks for letting them bring with them MRSA strains, TB strains, and all the other lovely germs they have. When my family came over to this country legally, they were all given chest x-rays and had blood work done so this country would know what they had.

[majicbuss]

Well it appears even with IV Antibotics my daughter has develouped another sore.

My childern have never abused antibotics we have had that pink bubble gum smelling stuff twice in nearly 21 years.

Wash throughly and as for abuse of antibotics, it is not an factor on wheather you get it or not.

[msinformed-2009]

My father went into the hospital with pneoumenia in September and picked up an mrsa infection in the hospital. He was admitted early on a Tuesday morning and died Friday night. This can be deadly, what can we do about it?

[grammawhamma]

Yes...the public needs to be aware of MRSA. Once you get it, it is difficult to get rid of. As a RN I have been exposed to it many many times...before the patient was diagnosed with it and put in isolation. MRSA is nothing to mess around with, however the media is now blowing it out of proportion. Another "fear factor" by the media. Don''t panic. Do not abuse and over use anti-biotics and wash your hands.

[majicbuss]

My 18 year old daughter is dealing with MRSA, She has not been in a hospital except when she was born. We can only guess she got it at work, she works at a casino.

She spent a week in the hospital and is on her 3rd week of twice a day home IV''s.

It''s driving us nuts, all we want it to do is stop. It sure hurts to watch your child hurt.

[sirene99]

I have personally talked with two people who contracted MRSA in the past month. One of them said the doctors suspected a spider bite, but basically didn''t know the cause. He had surgery and remained in isolation at the hospital for days afterwards. The other man told me he had gotten it from a minor scratch on his hand. He later had surgery on his leg to remove some of the bacteria. He stated he had 10 staples in his leg from the surgery.

Here are the symptoms from WebMD:

What are the symptoms?
The symptoms of MRSA infection depend on where you''ve been infected.

MRSA most often appears as a skin infection, like a boil or abscess. It also might infect a surgical wound. In either case, the area would look:

Swollen
Red
Painful
Pus filled
Many people who actually have staph skin infections often mistake it for a spider bite.

If staph infects the lungs and causes pneumonia, you might have:

Shortness of breath
Fever
Chills
MRSA can cause many other symptoms since it can infect the urinary tract or the bloodstream.

Very rarely, staph can result in necrotizing fasciitis, or "flesh-eating" bacterial infections. These are serious skin infections that spread very quickly. While frightening, necrotizing fasciitis caused by staph is rare. There have only been a handful of reported cases.

[rushlimpdrug]

Soooo many stories, but helll what are the symptoms? ? ?
Can anyone pleazzzze post the first signs of this krap? ?
Anyone? ? ?
Helllooooo

[heatherav]

gopsux,

And thats why me and baby are alive and thousands are dead.

Its common sense.... Its natural.... god gave us natural things on this earth that we can survive on. Why make up weird chemicals that just put your immune system down and make things worse.

On the other hand why not give it a try, if your dying and gonna die from it anyways whats it going to hurt!?!

[jn4ggs]

so 18k dead in 2005, so we as a nation will spend many times what we do on homeland security, right?

oh thats right, the war on terror is total bs.

[dstribli]

Our 20 yr old son was diagnosed with MRSA in July 07. He was fine one day and the next in the ER with severe chest pains. It had infected his blood, heart, lungs, kidneys. The infection developed from a scratch on his arm. He had an isolated hospital stay of 16 days and was on IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. By the Grace of God he just received a clean bill of health yesterday.

[daisym0m]

My husband almost lost his hand and part of his arm because of MRSA. He contracted MRSA when a nurse doing an IV on him dropped the thing on the floor and put it in his arm anyway. I couldn''t prove anything because the whole thing was witnessed by a 12-yr-old and she didn''t have credibility. Thank God, he had a hand surgeon that saved his hand and arm. Several operations later and a lot of therapy, he was able to more or less use his hand.

MRSA is nothing to laugh at and we need to take the precautions seriously.

[daisym0m]

My husband almost lost his hand and part of his arm because of MRSA. He contracted MRSA when a nurse doing an IV on him dropped the thing on the floor and put it in his arm anyway. I couldn''t prove anything because the whole thing was witnessed by a 12-yr-old and she didn''t have credibility. Thank God, he had a hand surgeon that saved his hand and arm. Several operations later and a lot of therapy, he was able to more or less use his hand.

MRSA is nothing to laugh at and we need to take the precautions seriously.

[fitdog1]

my son, age 27, was a confirmed community acquired mrsa patient at South County Hospital in Rhode Island on Sep. 27, 2007. Fortunately, he is recovering. Due to the most recent reported case (Westport, CN), I thought the general area might be worth a second look, in terms of a specific outbreak region. Needless to say, this is a very scary illness and I would like to believe we can be as informed as possible. P.S. I had never heard about this prior to a few weeks ago!

[kemonks]

As an RN for 50 years, it is always annoying when the news media deals wirh an issue that involves health care facilities, you never interview the nurses; just physicians. Physicians do not run hospitals. Granted physicians are big offenders for not washing their hands but it is the nurse that is there 24/7 giving the direct patient care.

[luvcomments]

I, too, had never been ill in my life (I''m 68 now). Three years ago I needed surgery which went well. After discharge from the hospital I noticed a couple of infections which were difficult to get rid of. Then, I noticed this MRSA thing on my hand. At the same time I saw on tv where many prisoners and guards at the jail also had MRSA. I noticed that, when I ate a lot of natural yogurt with natural cultures and active enzymes, this raised boil-like, pus-containing thing on my hand started to recede; when I didn''t eat the yogurt, the pustule came back and with a vengeance. It took almost a year but I finally was rid of it. I asked a physician friend of mine, primarily involved in infectious diseases for decades, about the yogurt as treatment and he laughed - "there''s no money in it for the pharmaceutical companies" is what he told me but he did say he had heard of these cultures curing this sort of thing before, and he also added that anti-biotices oftentimes seem to make the MRSA worse instead of fighting the bacteria involved.