New drug-resistant bacteria emerging in hospitals

Saturday, March 06, 2010 by: E. Huff, staff writer
Tags: drug-resistant bacteria, hospitals, health news

(NaturalNews) Researchers from the "Extending the Cure" project in Washington, D.C., have published a report in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology about a new drug-resistant bug that is plaguing many hospitals. Called Acinetobacter, this new "superbug" is causing severe bloodstream infection and pneumonia in many hospital patients.

The rise of hospital superbugs like Acinetobacter continues to be a problem as these virulent new strains are not being eliminated by even the most powerful antibiotic drugs. Imipenem, an intravenous antibiotic drug that is typically reserved as a last line of defense against severe infection, is not even capable of conquering this new strain of bacteria.

Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan and his colleagues examined data from 300 U.S. hospitals to see how the new bacteria was responding to imipenem. What they found was that between 1999 and 2006, there had been an astounding 300 percent increase in the number of Acinetobacter cases that were resistant to one of the industry's most powerful antibiotic drugs.

Dr. Laxminarayan worries that there will eventually be no effective antibiotics available to treat these new super-bacteria, seeing as how the number of cases continues to rise with no effective drug remedy in the pipeline. The bacteria is capable of colonizing patients' bodies while displaying little to no visible symptoms, making it even more a concern among hospital patients whose immune systems are already compromised. Many soldiers returning from the war in Iraq are coming down with Acinetobacter as well.

Most people are aware of MRSA, the hospital superbug that seems to continually be morphing into ever more virulent strains, however few realize that others like Acinetobacter which currently have fewer effective remedies available, are potentially even more deadly.

Many researchers have concluded that the overuse of antibiotics is the primary cause of super-strains of antibiotic resistant deadly bacteria. Most conventional doctors commonly prescribe antibiotics when a patient exhibits any kind of prolonged illness, even when the illness actually turns out to be viral rather than bacterial.

Rather than build up the body and fortify the immune system naturally, Western medicine has devoted itself to handing out antibiotics like candy which is destroying people's immune symptoms. Avoiding even natural, highly effective antibiotic elements like colloidal silver, the industry continues to press on towards the next new drug to treat the next new symptoms of illnesses caused by previous drugs.

Until perspectives toward health advance from drugs and surgery to natural and preventive, the disease mutation epidemic will continue to intensify.

Sources for this story include: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/174...