Coming home: Iraq vets carry new drug-resistant bacteria

[FreedomAngel82]

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/national/04germ.html

Snip: <Troops in Iraq Bring Resistant Bacteria Home

By DENISE GRADY
Published: August 4, 2005

American troops wounded in Iraq and brought back to military hospitals in the United
States have unexpectedly high rates of infection with a drug-resistant type of bacteria,
doctors are finding.

The bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, are not unique to Iraq. They live in soil and water
in many parts of the world, and had already been known to cause trouble in hospitals and
on battlefields in Vietnam. They can invade wounds, the bloodstream, bones, the lungs and
other parts of the body. Antibiotics can cure the infection, but doctors must use the
right ones, which include amikacin and imipenem.

"It is not difficult to treat," said Col. Bruno Petruccelli, a physician and director of
epidemiology and disease surveillance for the United States Army Center for Health
Promotion and Preventive Medicine. "If the antibiotic works, it works easily. It easily
dies." But, he added, an especially resistant strain of bacteria can cause a prolonged
infection.

About 240 cases have been treated at Army hospitals since 2003, Colonel Petruccelli said.
Hospitals like Walter Reed now see 6 to 12 infected soldiers a month; before 2003 they had
no more than one a month.

An online publication, Forbes.com, described the current outbreak on Tuesday, and reported
that about 40 infected patients had been treated at the National Naval Medical Center in
Bethesda, Md., in the same time period. A spokesman for the hospital did not respond to
telephone messages on Wednesday.>

[sam sarrha]

1. Bu$h is a Vampire that feeds on suffering,This is desert, bringing it home