Soldiers blamed for deadly superbug
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/7339128.stm
-
-
- jcwelker
- added this
Eight patients died from a superbug after a new strain was introduced to a hospital where soldiers injured in Iraq are treated, a freedom of information request by the BBC has revealed.
The University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust revealed the deaths happened between 2005 and 2007.
The T-strain of the MDR-AB superbug is believed by scientists to have been introduced to the Selly Oak site by injured soldiers.
But the trust's medical director David Rosser has said the bug, which is still present in the hospital, is "not a significant problem".
The bug - full name multi-resistant acienetobacter baumannii - is one of the gram negative superbugs, which is more resistant to antibiotics than gram positive superbugs like MRSA.
Records obtained by the BBC show the bug spread rapidly in 2003 from the trauma theatres onto the trauma wards and then into the burns unit, where two children were infected.
Doctors believe the new strain was introduced by injured soldiers flown back from Iraq because it was found on one when he was admitted to the hospital in 2004.
The T-strain was responsible for the majority of MDR-AB infections in the hospital and is thought most likely to have led to the subsequent deaths.
Scientists have linked the bug to returning soldiers. Dr Martin Gill, writing in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in 2006, said it was "the T-strain that has been most strongly associated with these casualties and that has, in the United Kingdom at least, caused the most infections".
He added: "It has been isolated from at least one soldier immediately on admission to the United Kingdom hospital, ruling out the possibility that it was acquired in that hospital."
The University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust revealed the deaths happened between 2005 and 2007.
The T-strain of the MDR-AB superbug is believed by scientists to have been introduced to the Selly Oak site by injured soldiers.
But the trust's medical director David Rosser has said the bug, which is still present in the hospital, is "not a significant problem".
The bug - full name multi-resistant acienetobacter baumannii - is one of the gram negative superbugs, which is more resistant to antibiotics than gram positive superbugs like MRSA.
Records obtained by the BBC show the bug spread rapidly in 2003 from the trauma theatres onto the trauma wards and then into the burns unit, where two children were infected.
Doctors believe the new strain was introduced by injured soldiers flown back from Iraq because it was found on one when he was admitted to the hospital in 2004.
The T-strain was responsible for the majority of MDR-AB infections in the hospital and is thought most likely to have led to the subsequent deaths.
Scientists have linked the bug to returning soldiers. Dr Martin Gill, writing in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in 2006, said it was "the T-strain that has been most strongly associated with these casualties and that has, in the United Kingdom at least, caused the most infections".
He added: "It has been isolated from at least one soldier immediately on admission to the United Kingdom hospital, ruling out the possibility that it was acquired in that hospital."
-
- groups:
- Community, News and Politics, Tech, Green, 2 more
-
- tags:
- News, News and Politics, Green, Tech, 10 more
