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

First human-to-human Bird Flu case NOT confirmed

Editor:

"Earlier today I reported that the World Health Organization had established human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus in Pakistan.
In fact, officials now say no evidence has been found of that, despite the fact a single case of the H5N1 virus has been established in a sick family.
However, there was no apparent risk of it spreading further."

A statement from the U.N. agency said tests in its special laboratories in Cairo and London had established the “human infection” through presence of the virus, collected from one case in an affected family.

But it said a WHO team invited to Pakistan to look into an outbreak involving up to nine people from late October to December 6th had found no evidence of sustained or community human-to-human transmission.

No identified close contacts of the people infected, including health workers and other members of the affected family, had shown any symptoms and they had all been removed from medical observation, the WHO added.

The outbreak followed a culling of infected chickens in the Peshawar region, in which a veterinary doctor was involved. Subsequently he and three of his brothers developed proven or suspected pneumonia.

The brothers cared for one another and had close personal contact both at home and in hospital, a WHO spokesman in Geneva said. One of them, who was not involved in the culling, died on November 23rd, but the cause of death was not known.

On November 28th another brother who had not been involved in the culling died, and tests on him (in Pakistan as well as in Cairo and London) had established the presence of the H5N1 virus.

The WHO spokesman said there was suspicion that there had been human-to-human transmission, as there had been similar suspicion of such transmission within families in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, but this could not be confirmed.

Earlier this week 2 more Egyptians tested positive for bird flu H5N1, a day after an Egyptian woman died of the disease.
This brings the total number of bird flu deaths in Egypt to 41.

Read the full story about that here

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First human-to-human Bird Flu case officially confirmed

Alert: first cases of bird flu emerged

First human-to-human Bird Flu case officially confirmed

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva confirmed a single case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus in a family in Pakistan but said there was no apparent risk of it spreading wider.

A statement from the U.N. agency said tests in its special laboratories in Cairo and London had established the "human infection" through presence of the virus collected from one case in an affected family.

But it said a WHO team invited to Pakistan to look into an outbreak involving up to nine people, from late October to December 6 had found no evidence of sustained or community human-to-human transmission.
No identified close contacts of the people infected, including health workers and other members of the affected family, had shown any symptoms and they had all been removed from medical observation, the WHO added.

The outbreak followed a culling of infected chickens in the Peshawar region, in which a veterinary doctor was involved. Subsequently he and three of his brothers developed proven or suspected pneumonia.

The brothers cared for one another and had close personal contact both at home and in the hospital, a WHO spokesman in Geneva said. One of them, who was not involved in the culling, died on November 23.

His was the human-to-human transmission case confirmed by the WHO. The others all recovered.

"All the evidence suggests that the outbreak within this family does not pose a broader risk," the WHO spokesman said.

"But there is already heightened surveillance and there is a need for ongoing vigilance."

It was the first human-to-human case of H5N1 transmission in Pakistan, while others have been confirmed in Indonesia and Thailand in similar circumstances of what the WHO calls close contacts in a very circumscribed area.

Global health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.

So far, the virus has killed 211 people out of 343 infections reported since 2003.

Source: Reuters

Related article:

Alert: first cases of bird flu emerged