News > Geek > Flesh Eating Drug Resistant Bug Reaches Alarming levels

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SATURDAY APRIL 9 2005 1:00 PM

Flesh Eating Drug Resistant Bug Reaches Alarming levels

Submitted by dem_z

Edited by Shal

Flesh eating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA) infections have been seen outside hospitals in America. US doctors are warning people about the alarming rise in the rate of infection.

The infections in the US community have typically manifested as skin infections, such as pimples and boils, in otherwise healthy people.

Although none of the 14 patients died, they had serious complications, including the need for reconstructive surgery and prolonged stay in the intensive care unit.

The CDC has been investigating clusters of the community-acquired MRSA skin infections among athletes, military recruits and prisoners.

A common theme associated with the spread of these MRSA skin infections appears to be close skin-to-skin contact, openings in the skin such as cuts or abrasions, contaminated items and surfaces, crowded living conditions and poor hygiene.

This sounds like every student accomodation that I've ever seen. The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is not the same as the one rampaging through UK hospitals.

In the UK, there have been some cases of MRSA in the community, but experts say these are different to the cases arising in the US.

Dr Jodi Lindsay, lecturer in infectious diseases at St George's hospital, said although no cases had been reported in the UK yet, it was a concern.

"We are worried these community-acquired MRSAs might come over here from the US," she said.

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Comments

traceelement

Australia

March 2005

APR 10, 2005 05:13 AM

Mqx said:
Way ahead of you.

I read this in 1996 right after it came out and it's getting truer and truer every day.

PS, Still widely available and highly recommended.

[Edited on Apr 09, 2005 1:56PM]

Yeah I agree great read, I pick up a copy a couple of years back and enjoyed it immensely.

dem_z

United Kingdom

June 2004

APR 10, 2005 07:21 AM

bean said:
I'm sorry, but does this sound just a tad alarmist to anyone but me?

WAIT 'TIL YOU'VE HAD YOUR FLESH EATEN BY VORACIOUS FLESH EATING BACTERIA (why are they such fucking aresholes?) BEFORE YOU CALL IT ALARMIST!!!1!

*dons biohazard suit and sprays bleach everywhere*

dem_z

United Kingdom

June 2004

APR 10, 2005 07:23 AM

mcsalty said:
According to the Tory opposition election campaign, MRSA is all Labour Govt.s fault, and the Tories will make it all better when they get in. The slogan is "How hard is it to keep a hospital clean?" Labour could respond with "Hey, at least it's not the flesh-eating kind!"

Those Tory slogans really annoy me. The answer is "It's quite hard to keep a hospital clean after you slashed the health budget and made hospitals operate without enough staff. "

More people die of MRSA in the UK than are killed by car crashes, so it's a bit of a worry.

SaucisseDanseuse

Italy

March 2005

APR 10, 2005 04:24 PM

i am not hypocondriac and actually i do work ont he ambulance (never seen a case of this yet, luckily!), so i am not easily scared, but lately i have been considering the things i may get into when i go into a moshpit at concerts. rubbing with strangers sweat and the such. the pits i get into are like 300-people-strong, and who the hell knows what they have on their skin?

that gives me the shivers... but all in all, i am up for the "Live fast, die young" theory, and nothing can take my moshpit away. concerts are made to be sweaty! i just cross fingers and take a shower right when i come home.

oh, and then i throw myself over a bbq cause heat kills bacteria (but i also do it cause i love the smell of bbq-ed meat!)

p.

Soda_Pop

San Antonio, TX

February 2004

APR 10, 2005 04:29 PM

see, no one believes me that anti-bacterial soap and those hand sanitizers are going to be the death of us.....its that .0001% that non of them kill, are in the long run going to wipe us out.

Remember how penicillin used to cure EVERYTHING?...and now it only kills simple things and your lovely syphillis..

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

APR 10, 2005 04:41 PM

Rabidnid said:

bean said:
I'm sorry, but does this sound just a tad alarmist to anyone but me? If this is the same thing that was making the news a few years ago, when people had whole chunks of limbs eaten by bacteria, then the BBC is doing a miserable job relating that fact, I mean...pimples and boils?

Yeah, it sounds pretty fucking miserable and uncomfortable, and nobody wants to have to endure "a prolonged stay in the ICU," but it's not like anyone's bleeding out their eyeballs and dying a few hours later or anything.

Note: I'm not saying "this isn't that bad." Yeah, it's pretty fucking rotten, but it doesn't seem like the WHO is getting their undies in a bunch over it.

[Edited on Apr 09, 2005 by bean]

Hummm, let's see...

A 16 year old school girl in Sydney about 5 years ago feels ill at school and get's sent home, her mom give's her some asprin and puts her in bed. Next morning see's the doctor, he calls the ambulence and she is admited to hospital when she has both legs amputated and loses the use of both arms, she also suffer's irriversable damage to her internal organs from both the bacteria and the antibiotics.

There is a belief that the bacteria may live in dirt, but other than that, nobody has a clue. If you don't get to hospital within hours of the infection occruing you are in deep trouble.

If you ain't scared shitless of this thing you are the only one, and no the WHO dosen't give a rat's because it dosen't kill millions of people, what it dose do is kill in less than a day or destroy lives in a few hours, with complete randomness.

[Edited on Apr 10, 2005 9:46AM]

Um, did you miss the part where I said:

If this is the same thing that was making the news a few years ago, when people had whole chunks of limbs eaten by bacteria, then the BBC is doing a miserable job relating that fact, I mean...pimples and boils?

The story said "pimples and boils" not "leg amputation," which is why I said that if it was the same thing as the ones that we've heard about before, then the BBC isn't making that clear.

It really doesn't sound like the thing you're talking about and the thing the article is talking about are the same thing at all, since the article says that it's thought to be caused by poor hygiene and whatnot. Bah. You'd think they could at least use the proper names for these things just so that there isn't so much confusion about what the fuck it is.

Maclay

United Kingdom

March 2004

APR 10, 2005 04:50 PM

likwid_todd said:
my buddy at work got that because we're always in the ocean/bay in san diego. it starts as a respiratory bug that isn't too harmful but, if you cough or sneeze and accidently spread it to an open wound it becomes the fast moving flesh-eating type of bug. you can actually watch the infection spread over a period of 10 to 15 minutes or so. he was fortunate. we caught it early just below his calf and got him to the hospital before it could spread to any vital organs. doctors had to filet his leg to cut the infection out of all the tissue in between his muscles. nice.

A similar thing happened to me. It was caught relatively quickly and I didn't need an amputation. Had I waited, like, 12 hours longer to go to emergency, my lower left leg would have been amputated... A few days and I would have been dead. I now have a massively cool scar and skin graft on my leg though, from my ankle to my knee.

Rhys

SUICIDEGIRL

Florida, USA

APR 10, 2005 04:58 PM

i should -never- read these threads....... or that book.

never ever. i am bad enough with worrying about disease as it is.

jake_lex

Lexington, KY

February 2003

APR 10, 2005 05:03 PM

Soda_Pop said:
see, no one believes me that anti-bacterial soap and those hand sanitizers are going to be the death of us.....its that .0001% that non of them kill, are in the long run going to wipe us out.

Remember how penicillin used to cure EVERYTHING?...and now it only kills simple things and your lovely syphillis..

That's why I feel an urge to punch someone in the face when they're slathering that Purell shit on their hands.

We've become so germ phobic that we are, in effect, making germs that much more potent.