The Ottawa Hospital starts testing overnight patients for superbugs

The Ottawa Hospital will begin testing overnight patients for two virulent strains of bacteria beginning in January to help combat infections and deaths.

Overnight patients will be screened for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), two strains of bacteria that, along with other hospital-acquired superbugs, kill thousands of Canadians annually.

The mandatory screening follows a pilot project the hospital conducted in the summer, which found that certain members of the patient population should but weren't screened for the drug-resistant bacteria, hospital spokeswoman Allison Neill said.

The Ottawa Hospital will be the second hospital to adopt universal screening for these two superbugs. Toronto's University Health Network initiated testing for these two bacteria in the fall.

If patients test positive for either bug, they will be isolated in private hospital rooms, the hospital said.

In the six months ended September 30th, there were 82 cases of hospital-acquired MRSA at the Ottawa Hospital.

In the same period, there were 18 cases of hospital-acquired VRE at the hospital.

Source: CBC

Aghan bug threat: federal authorities warn hospitals

Federal authorities are warning hospitals across the country to beware of a highly drug resistant bacteria that wounded troops are bringing back from Afghanistan and that could inadvertently be spread to civilian patients.

The threat posed by the resistant strain of acinetobacter baumannii underlines the health care system's general lack of readiness for such emerging infections as they arrive in the country, said a senior Public Health Agency of Canada official.

Several soldiers being treated in civilian hospitals here have already developed pneumonia from the drug-resistant strain of the bacteria, which scientists say likely originated in the Canadian-led trauma centre at Kandahar Air Field.

Hospitals are being advised by the agency to screen injured soldiers for the bug, and take infection-control precautions if they test positive.

No transmission to non-military patients has been detected yet, and the bug is not seen as much of a danger to healthy people outside of hospital.
The fear, however, is that the resistant strain could genetically combine with more easily treatable versions of the bacteria that are more common in Canadian intensive-care units, said Shirley Paton of the public-health agency.

"We're seeing a new organism being introduced into the Canadian swamp of organisms, this one being highly resistant," she said.

"If we get someone with this highly resistant strain, are the two bugs going to get together into one? ... We're quite concerned that this will start spreading and become the acinetobacter of choice in the ICUs. We're really worried about that kind of transmission."

Read the full story in The National Post