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Resistant Bacterial Infection Outbreak At California Hospital

Posted by timothy on from the lord-have-mrsa dept.

puddingebola writes From the article: "A potentially deadly "superbug" resistant to antibiotics has infected seven patients, including two who died, and more than 160 others were exposed at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center through contaminated medical instruments, the hospital revealed. The drug-resistant superbug known as CRE was likely transmitted to the Los Angeles patients by contaminated medical scopes during endoscopic procedures that took place between October 2014 and January 2015, a university statement said. " UCLA says the infections occurred via contaminated endoscopes that were sterilized according to the manufacturer's specifications. (Note: beware autoplaying video ad; adjust your volume accordingly.)

10 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. From the grave... by Nutria · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ronald Reagan's cold dead hand stretches forth again to wreak havoc across the land!

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:From the grave... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But, in fact, the system works. Nothing is going to be foolproof or fail safe. There will always be screw ups or just procedures that don't fix everything. However, it is telling that the hospital's surveillance systems figured out what the problem was, identified the patients at risk and presumably stopped the 'outbreak'. 32 patients, although it sounds like a lot, is probably just a couple of days worth of scopes at a big institution.

      Although not clearly delineated in TFA, it appears that the problematic instruments were endoscopes used in ERCP procedures. These particular devices are at high risk of contamination due to their complex design.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:From the grave... by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Funny

      As if I didn't already have enough reasons to *NOT* have something stuck up my ass!!

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    3. Re:From the grave... by fsagx · · Score: 5, Informative

      A flexible endoscope is cleaned in a machine more like a kitchen dishwasher than an autoclave. The scope has internal channels for shooting air and water out of a nozzle on the tip. It has a large channel to pass instruments into the patient (biopsy forceps, cauterizers, even other more narrow endoscopes). An ERCP scope has an additional channel that carries a stiff wire that is used to deflect instruments coming out the end. This channel and wire is a very tight fit, so it is more difficult to clean.

      Attachments to the channel ports should circulate the sterilizing fluids through all the channels. It's not difficult to imagine a clog preventing the fluid from circulating. Testing for leaks and clogs is part of the cleaning procedure, but in practice, of course, errors happen often:

      Similar story from just last month:
      http://www.modernhealthcare.co...

      A biggy at the VA a few years ago:
      http://health.usnews.com/healt...

    4. Re:From the grave... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This entire thread is wrong from the very beginning, actual Tyndallization is for things that can't be boiled. You heat it to just below 100C for 15 minutes to kill active bacteria, then you store it in a damp environment for a day to encourage the spores that don't die to germinate into active bacteria and start growing again over the next 24 hours. Then you heat it again. You repeat this every day until you feel you have it clean enough. Any spores that didn't de-cloak will still be there and will become active when the environment allows it.

      It's not used anymore because it takes days and can't kill spores.

  2. To quote Sheldon Cooper. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sheldon Cooper: To a hospital? Full of sick people? Oh, I don't think so.

    Penny: Okay, well, your friend and his mother are there. We're going!

    Sheldon Cooper: I can't.

    Penny: Oh, don't tell me you're afraid of germs.

    Sheldon Cooper: Not all germs. Just the ones that will kill me. The same way I'm not afraid of all steak knives; just the ones that might be plunged in my thorax.

    Leonard Hofstadter: Ah-uh, fine, I'll tell Howard you didn't come because you're more concerned about your own well-being than his.

    Sheldon Cooper: I would think he would know that.

    Penny: Okay, you know what? You are unbelievable. You buy all these superhero T-shirts but when it's time for you to step up and do the right thing, you just hide in the laundry room.

    Sheldon Cooper: Fine, I'll go. Just for the record, my Aunt Ruth died in a hospital. She went in to visit my Uncle Roger, caught something, and bit the dust a week later. The two of them now share a coffee can on my mother's mantel.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  3. Oops by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm seriously regretting any anti-bacterial soap I've used over the years right about now.

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    Happy people make bad consumers.
    1. Re:Oops by pnutjam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, overuse like putting it in every day hand soap.

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      Cheap storage VM.
    2. Re:Oops by smellsofbikes · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm seriously regretting any anti-bacterial soap I've used over the years right about now.

      Don't be. We may breed triclosan-resistant bacteria by using antibacterial soap, but that doesn't mean we're breeding carbapenem-resistant bacteria -- the C in CRE -- by using triclosan. There is very little evidence that developed resistance to one type of antibiotic increases resistance to another completely unrelated antibiotic. Triclosan inhibits fatty acid synthesis, carbapenem inhibits synthesis of the peptidoglycans used in bacterial cell walls.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
  4. Look up CRE by Cafe+Alpha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Current estimates are that 3% of patients in ICU test positive and 1/3 of people in nursing homes.

    You read that right, 1/3. Also multiple types of bacteria are CRE. It means they have an enzyme that breaks down a class of antibotics.

    This has been sneaking up on us for a while.

    I think that the problem is, most bacteria are usually harmless, but these can't be killed easy, and if they ever turn into blood infections the mortality rate seems to be 50%.