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Post by Watchman on Feb 6, 2007 10:35:49 GMT -5
New Superbug Kills Healthy Young Adults In 24 Hours
by: M.T. Whitney
(NewsTarget) A new, dangerous superbug that kills within 24 hours has begun to spread across the industrialized world.
The bacteria is called PVL-producing MRSA, and it is a highly-virulent strain of Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as the staph infection. This strain of staph infection is resistant to drugs, and particularly vicious.
The strain of MRSA that produces PVL -- panton-valentine leukocidin toxin – decimates white blood cells and often causes boils to appear. But if it gets into an open wound or is strong enough, it starts the process for necrotizing pneumonia, which rapidly destroys lung tissue. The survival rate for necrotizing pneumonia is currently only 25 percent.
The superbug is strong enough to kill healthy young adults: In 2004, a young, fit British Royal Marine named Richard Campbell-Smith contracted the disease and died within three days.
In 2005, there were 106 cases of PVL-MRSA in England and Wales, including one confirmed death from the development of necrotizing pneumonia. So far, there have been fatalities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Europe.
Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College, London, told the BBC that this strain of the disease probably evolved from a previous strain found in the 1950s that included PVL. That strain did not have the resistance to drugs that this one does.
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Post by Watchman on Nov 29, 2007 16:54:10 GMT -5
Deadly MRSA bug spreads to healthy adults
David Rose
A potent strain of superbug that is rife in America is emerging at an increasing rate in Britain, doctors say.
A growing number of patients are being treated for infections with Panton-Valentine leukocidin-positive (PVL) MRSA, which can attack the immune system of healthy adults and children.
The highly infectious bacteria spread through the community and are not confined to hospitals, but have previously been found only in isolated cases in Britain.
The Health Protection Agency said that only seven deaths in England and Wales had been associated with PVL-positive MRSA in the past two years. But Marina Morgan, from the Royal Devon & Exeter Foundation NHS Trust, said that if community strains spread as they had in the US, many more with unsuspected MRSA infections would be admitted to hospitals.
“The new community-associated MRSA strains appear to be more virulent and more easily spread between people,” she said. “When doctors finally realise the infection is MRSA, by the time patients get the correct treatment it may be too late.”
MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a common bug, carried by millions of people, that has mutated to become immune to many antibiotics. Symptoms range from minor infections in the skin and soft tissues to a form of pneumonia that can kill in 24 hours. Dr Morgan said that this type of pneumonia would kill more than 60 per cent of otherwise healthy young, fit people. Community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) is now well established in America, where it triggers about one in ten MRSA cases and is a common cause of childhood infection.
One in five infected patients requires hospital treatment, and doctors are worried about the same pattern being repeated in Britain.
The new strains appear to attach themselves to damaged skin and air-ways more easily than hospital MRSA, and they multiply at a faster rate. The PVL toxin they produce kills white blood cells, an essential part of the body’s immune system, although researchers believe that there are other reasons for the virulence of CA-MRSA.
Dr Morgan said: “These community-associated versions have been found in people with few, if any, reasons to have MRSA. They haven’t recently been in hospital, or are not looking after or living with people with MRSA.”
A spokesman for the HPA said that PVL-MRSA was “more toxic than other strains of MRSA”, but it could be treated with antibiotics.
Dr Morgan is due to spell out the scale of the problem today at the Federation of Infection Societies Conference, at the University of Cardiff.
The meeting will also hear of a threat from bacteria that can destroy common antibiotics, including penicil-lin. The bugs, which include a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli), are spreading out of hospitals into nursing homes and communities throughout Europe. They produce enzymes called extended spectrum beta-lactamases. Between 2003 and 2004 a severe outbreak of bladder infections was caused by E. coli that made one of the enzymes.
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