MRSA Staph Superbug

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Don't overlook the tropics...

Next plague likely to emerge from poor tropical countries
Thursday, February 21, 2008 - Scores of infectious diseases have emerged to threaten humans in the past decades as viruses leap the species barrier from wild animals and bacteria mutate into antibiotic-resistant strains, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Presenting the first-ever map of "hotspots" of new infectious diseases, they predict that the next pandemic is likeliest to come out of poor tropical countries, where burgeoning human populations come into contact with wildlife. A three-year investigation led by four major institutions tracked 335 incidents since 1940 when a new infectious disease emerged.

The category includes HIV/AIDS, which has slain or infected more than 65 million people around the world, and outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and H5N1 bird flu, which have cost tens of billions of dollars to contain. The emergence of new diseases have roughly quadrupled over the past 50 years, says the study, appearing in the British journal Nature. Sixty percent of them are so-called zoonoses, or diseases that have been transmitted from animals to humans.

Most zoonoses come from wild animals, especially mammals, which are the most closely related species to humans. Novel pathogens that adapt to humans can be extremely lethal, as we have no resistance to them. New zoonoses include AIDS, which is believed to have jumped from chimpanzees to humans, possibly through hunters who killed and butchered apes; SARS, whose natural reservoir is Chinese bats; and the Ebola virus, which holes up in three species of African fruit bat and infects animal primates and humans.

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US flu season worsens as new vaccines ordered
WASHINGTON Fri Feb 22, 2008 - Influenza is widespread in 49 states, and this year's epidemic has killed at least 22 children, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.

On Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration agreed to completely change next year's flu vaccine mix because all three strains included in the flu shot cocktail have mutated. But companies have a head start on working with two of the three, the CDC's Dr. Nancy Cox said. FDA advisers agreed with the World Health Organization recommendations made last week on changing the vaccine to match the drifting flu viruses.

"In brief, seasonal influenza activity has increased during the past week," Cox told reporters in a telephone briefing. Flu has killed 22 children so far this season, Cox said. She did not have details on any of the cases.

Cox said the CDC was watching the epidemic and asking state health departments to collect data on who gets sick, whether the were vaccinated, and whether influenza drugs were effective in fighting the infections. Several European countries have reported that people are becoming infected with strains that resist the effects of Tamiflu, the antiviral drug made by Roche AG and Gilead Sciences.

More U.S. flu season worsens as new vaccines ordered | Health | Reuters

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Learning from this year's mistake...

Changes to Next Season’s Flu Vaccine
Feb 24th, 2008 • To keep up with the latest influenza outbreaks caused by strains that are not included in the current vaccine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee recommended that producers use three new flu strains in next season’s vaccine, replacing all three components of this year’s version.

Of the flu viruses analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control so far this season, 83% have been type A and 16% type B. Type B viruses tend to cause milder illness than type A viruses. Of the type A viruses, 63% have been H3N2 and 37% have been H1N1. H1N1 virus, which in the United States has been well matched by the vaccine was common until early January, but since then the situation has reversed. Seasons in which H3N2 viruses are predominant tend to be more severe than those in which H1N1 strains predominate, experts say.

The three flu virus varieties in the next season’s vaccine include a type A/H1N1, type A/H3N2, and a type B. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended replacing all three strains for next year’s vaccine because the majority of recent H1N1 isolates differ from the H1N1 strain in the vaccine.

The flu vaccine is reformulated each year to try to keep pace with the fast-evolving viruses. The WHO and FDA recommend the strains for the vaccine in February to give manufacturers time to grow the viruses in chicken eggs and process them into vaccine doses. The choice of strains can be tricky since the predominant viruses may differ from those in the vaccine, but most years the vaccine is reasonably on target.

MedHeadlines CDC Elderly Care FDA Flu Infectious Disease Lifestyle Prevention Vaccinations Changes to Next Season’s Flu Vaccine

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Starting to spread throughout the general population...

'It's Everywhere': Superbug Nightmare
March 5, 2008 - 'They Can Adapt to Virtually any Pressure That We Expose Them To,' Doctors Say

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MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and is one of a number of bacterial infections commonly found in hospitals. But now, it is being found with an increasing frequency outside hospitals. McQueary isn't sure where she got it. "That's what's frightening — very frightening— because everything that you touch has a potential of having that illness on it," McQueary said. "Elevator buttons, stairways, your keyboards at work, your telephones at work, it's everywhere."

'Superbug' Setting Off Panic

Dr. Chip Chambers, chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at San Francisco General Hospital, said MRSA is an organism that stays with you but doesn't always affect those it lives within. MRSA can become fatal when it enters a sore or a pimple and gets into the bloodstream. The bacterial infection that was once confined to hospitals has now spilled out into communities at alarming rates, Chambers said. "In the mid '90s and later, these strains began to be detected in people who had no hospital contact," Chambers said.

MRSA, and other bacterium like it, have become so prevalent in communities, and so resistant, that it's called a superbug. Chambers said the superbug is fatal in about 10 to 20 percent of cases in which there is a bloodstream infection. As recently as mid-February, a 20-year-old college student in Washington state thought he was was battling the flu before he died from MRSA. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 19,000 Americans die from the infection each year.

FULL ABC News: 'It's Everywhere': Superbug Nightmare

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'Strep throat' vaccine may be near...

Vaccine against ‘strep throat’ may be coming
Thurs., March. 6, 2008 WASHINGTON - Scientists manage to alter dangerous bacteria antigen for safer use

It may be possible to make a safe vaccine against the type of bacteria best known for causing ”strep throat” and rheumatic fever, U.S.-based researchers reported on Thursday. The little piece of the bacteria that causes serious disease can be altered slightly into a form that may work as a vaccine, the team at the University of California, San Diego, reported.

Group A streptococcal infections affect more than 600 million people each year and kill 400,000 globally. Most infections cause throat inflammation known as “strep throat,” which is easily treated with antibiotics.

But untreated strep throat infections can cause rheumatic fever, an often deadly inflammation of the heart. In countries where antibiotics are not easily available, rheumatic fever remains common and can weaken the hearts of survivors for life.

Group A streptococcus, or GAS, also can cause the ”flesh-eating” syndrome called necrotizing fasciitis and blood-borne infections, including toxic shock syndrome.

Safe vaccine poses problem

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Pets may harbor dangerous MRSA germs...

When MRSA won't wane, check the family pet
Wed., March. 12, 2008 • Drug-resistant staph could be swapped between animals and owners

As if all the angst about drug-resistant staph bacteria wasn’t worrisome enough, now it turns out you might get the deadly germ from your cat. Suspicions about that calico on the couch are being raised this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. German scientists reported that a woman endured a series of nasty abscesses caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA, until a veterinarian screened — and treated — the family cat.

It’s not an isolated case, or critter, according to researchers in the U.S. and Canada who are studying the connection between pets, people and this dangerous, drug-resistant bug linked to more than 94,000 infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2005. “We’ve found MRSA in dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs — even marine mammals,” said J. Scott Weese, an associate professor of pathobiology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Horses and cows also are routinely affected.

Owners should be aware, but not worried, about the possibility of getting MRSA from their pets, said Weese, who is part of a team led by researchers at the University of Missouri, Columbia, studying the prevalence of MRSA in humans and companion animals. “The big thing we need to get the mindset around is that we’re not a population of dogs, cats and people, we’re a population of animals,” said Weese.

More Pets may harbor dangerous MRSA germs - Infectious diseases - MSNBC.com

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Staph related pneumonia...

Community-Based Staph Pneumonia More Common Than Thought
WEDNESDAY, March 19,`08 -- Many cases are linked to drug-resistant bacteria, CDC study finds

Pneumonia caused by the Staphylococcus aureas bacterium and caught outside of the hospital environment may be more common in the United States than previously believed, preliminary research suggests. "Over the last few years we have been receiving reports of a severe CAP [community-acquired pneumonia] caused by S. aureus. There are a lot of questions about this disease, but until now there have primarily been case studies which tend to highlight the severest of cases and may present a biased picture," Alexander Kallen, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lead researcher, said in a prepared statement.

The CDC team looked for cases of S. aureus CAP in 2006-07 influenza season data from three Atlanta-area pediatric hospitals. The researchers found 53 such cases, which was more than they expected. "No one really knows what the true incidence of S. aureus CAP is. People suspect that S. aureus causes 3 percent to 5 percent of all CAP cases, but the number of cases per month we found suggest that these rates of S. aureus CAP might be higher than previously estimated," Kallen said. The CDC researchers also found that the fatality rate in S. aureus CAP cases was about 13 percent -- much lower than some previous estimates of between 30 percent and 50 percent.

In addition, they found that about half of the S. aureus CAP cases were caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). The finding was "not unexpected but quite concerning," Kallen said. The CDC team was alarmed that nearly 40 percent of the children with MRSA CAP didn't receive antibiotics that could combat the resistant strain. "The fact that a lot of these kids who had MRSA were not treated with antibiotics that have activity against MRSA suggests that clinicians are not recognizing this organism as a cause of CAP during influenza season," Kallen said.

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Ebola vaccine?...

Bats may be key to Ebola vaccine
March 29, 2008 - EXPERTS say they are making progress in the battle against the horrifying Ebola virus with a congress in Gabon told that a vaccine could be ready in five years.

Scientists told the first world congress on the Ebola and related Marburg viruses to be held in Africa that the fruit bat was probably the main carrier though it never falls victim to the diseases. Ebola and Marburg, which both cause agonising haemorrhagic fevers and severe internal bleeding, are estimated to have killed between 600 and 2500 people since they first emerged in the mid-1970s.

Experts at the weeklong conference which ended yesterday said that Ebola could become more widespread unless more resources are put into the fight to eradicate it. Boston University researcher Thomas Geisbert said vaccines against Ebola and Marburg could be developed within "four, five or six years''. He said shots that worked on monkeys had been developed.

Much attention has also been put on the role of the fruit bat in spreading the highly contagious virus. Xavier Pourrut of the Franceville International Centre for Medical Research described the fruit bat as a "natural reservoir'' for Ebola and Marburg. The fruit bat carries the virus without being infected and can spread it to other animals or humans, a discovery which should help protect populations, experts said.

Pierre Formenty, a World Health Organisation expert, said: "In the long term we'll work on understanding the immune systems that allow them (bats) to survive the infection'' adding this could pave the path for more effective vaccines and treatments. Mr Formenty said "we cannot eradicate Ebola and Marburg, but there are solutions so that we can live with it.''

More Bats may be key to Ebola vaccine | NEWS.com.au

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Germs That Eat Antibiotics for Breakfast...

Germs in Soil Find Antibiotics Tasty
WASHINGTON Apr 3, 2008 - Scientists Find Bacteria in Soil That Gobble Up Antibiotics

Antibiotics for breakfast? The drugs are supposed to kill bacteria, not feed them. Yet Harvard researchers have discovered hundreds of germs in soil that literally gobble up antibiotics, able to thrive with the potent drugs as their sole source of nutrition. These bacteria outwit antibiotics in a disturbingly novel way, and now the race is on to figure out just how they do it — in case more dangerous germs that sicken people could develop the same ability.

On the other hand, the work explains why the soil doesn't harbor big antibiotic buildups despite use of the drugs in livestock plus human disposal and, well, excretion, too. "Thank goodness we have those bacteria to eat at least some of the antibiotics," said bacteriologist Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wasn't involved in the study. "Nature's pretty effective." The discovery, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, came about almost by accident.

A team led by Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church has a Department of Energy grant to develop ways to create biofuels from agriculture waste. Plants are full of natural toxins, so the goal was to find microorganisms in soil capable of breaking down certain of those chemicals. To winnow down the strongest candidates, they tried exposing these bacteria to what should have been far more toxic substances, antibiotics.

That bacteria can eat weird things is the basis for the field of bioremediation. Some bugs help break down oil spills, for example. Nor is it a surprise that soil bacteria can withstand some antibiotics; some had already been found. After all, a number of antibiotics are natural — think penicillin. Some antibiotics have been derived from soil.

More ABC News: Germs That Eat Antibiotics for Breakfast

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Infectious disease experts warn of a "perfect storm" of infectious disease...

Docs Fear Deadly Combo of Flu, MRSA
April 26, 2008 - Influenza Opens Door for Superbug Infections, Health Experts Say

One is a viral illness responsible for an estimated 35,000 deaths every year. The other is a potentially deadly superbug, a horrifying legacy of antibiotic overuse that is now resistant to almost every treatment today's doctors can throw at it. Even on their own, infection with either influenza or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can lead to a grave situation. But now, health officials are keeping an eye out for an even more harrowing threat -- simultaneous infection with both diseases. And they say that, in children at least, these cases of co-incident infection appear to be on the rise.

So far, what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has learned about the potential link between flu and MRSA in young patients is disturbing. According to an official health advisory issued Jan. 30, between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007, the agency received a total of 73 reports of child deaths due to influenza. In 22 of these cases, the children were also infected with some form of the staph bug, mostly MRSA. This compares with only three such cases of co-infection during the same period in 2005 and 2006, and just one such case identified in 2004-2005.

And on Friday, the Boston Globe reported that Massachusetts health officials have linked MRSA to two recent deaths in children from the flu, renewing concerns over such a surge. It is not the first time that viral and bacterial infections have gone hand-in-hand, notes Dr. Jonathan C. Weissler, chief of medicine at University of Texas Southwestern University Hospitals in Dallas. "It is well known that community-acquired staph pneumonia is much more common in patients who have influenza," he says. "This has not changed."

But when it does happen, the results can be disastrous. Infectious disease experts say spikes in this kind of co-incidence of influenza and drug-resistant bugs have happened in the past, with devastating results even for many healthy individuals.

More ABC News: Docs Fear Deadly Combo of Flu, MRSA

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A bad germ gets worse...

Watch what you touch: A bad germ gets worse
Fri., May. 2, 2008 - ‘C. diff’ rivals MRSA as the next deadly bacteria threat, experts say; Rising rates of the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile, known as C. diff, are sparking worries about a virulent form of the bug that can cause severe diarrhea — and death.

Amy Warren had never heard of the germ that made her so miserable. In January 2005, weeks after giving birth to her daughter, the Ohio mother of two knew only that she was in pain, suffering cramping so severe she felt like she was still in labor. Then came the diarrhea, uncontrollable bouts up to 50 times a day, which left Warren weak and raw and stranded in her Maineville home. "I was so sick; I thought I had colon cancer and was dying," Warren recalled.

Three tests failed to detect the source of her intestinal trouble. A fourth, however, confirmed Warren as part of a toxic trend: She was among growing numbers of people sickened by an especially virulent form of the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile, known as C. diff. Doctors told Warren she’d contracted the NAP1 type of the bacteria, a mutated version that produces roughly 20 times the toxins responsible for illnesses ranging from simple diarrhea to blood poisoning — and death. “It’s like a science fiction disease,” said Warren, who struggled for six months through three relapses before controlling the infection. “That’s what scared me. People die from this.”

C. diff has long been a common, usually benign bug associated with simple, easily treated diarrhea in older patients in hospitals and nursing homes. About 3 percent of healthy adults harbor the bacteria with no problem. But overuse of antibiotics has allowed the germ to develop resistance in recent years, doctors said, creating the toxic new type that stumps traditional treatment. "This is the one we're scared of," said Dr. Brian Koll, chief of infection control at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.

More A bad germ gets worse - Health care - MSNBC.com