Drug-resistant Bacteria Infecting Soldiers
Posted on August 2, 2005
Forbes.com reports that 280 people returning from the battefield in Iraq (mostly soldiers) have been infected with a deadly and drug-resistant bacteria that is possibly found in the Iraqi soil. Forbes also says that while no patients have died from the bacters, called Acinetobacter baumannii, five very sick patients that were near soldiers in hospitals have died after being infected.
Doctors worry not only about soldiers who are already infected but also those who are carrying Acinetobacter on their skin even though they themselves are not infected. Lt. Cmdr. Kyle Petersen, an infectious disease specialist at National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda, Md.,says his hospital treated 396 patients who had been wounded in Iraq between May 2003 and February 2005. About 10% were infected and another 20% were found to have Acinetobacter bacteria on their skin but were not infected. The rate of appearance of the bacteria has "been flat-out steady," says Petersen.Forbes also said the 11 antibiotics have failed against acinetobacter and only two antibiotics are always effective. There are estimated to be 40 current cases of acinetobacter infection at the National Naval Medical Center.The same has been true at Army hospitals that include Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Tripler Medical Center inHawaii and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where there has been a total of about 240 cases of patients infected, while another 500 have carried the bacteria, according to Col. Bruno Petrucelli, director of epidemiology and disease surveillance for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.