Deaths from a drug-resistant staph "superbug" among the 90,000 Americans infected each year may exceed those caused by AIDs, according to a recently released government report.
The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.
Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections — those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.
Researchers discovered only about one-quarter of the cases involved hospitalized patients, although more than half were in the health care system — people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the infection proliferates.
In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.
The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by MRSA. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.
The researchers' estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.
Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study led by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source: Xinhua/agencies
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