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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-need-to-spread-the-word-but-okay-to-let-the-disease-spread? dept.

Submitted via IRC for AzumaHazuki

Deadly germs, Lost cures: A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy [Editor's Comment: Link has disappeared.]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/health/drug-resistant-candida-auris.html [Alternative Link]

Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious.

Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit. The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe.

Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa .

Recently C. auris reached New York, New Jersey and Illinois, leading the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed "urgent threats."

The man at Mount Sinai died after 90 days in the hospital, but C. auris did not. Tests showed it was everywhere in his room, so invasive that the hospital needed special cleaning equipment and had to rip out some of the ceiling and floor tiles to eradicate it.

"Everything was positive — the walls, the bed, the doors, the curtains, the phones, the sink, the whiteboard, the poles, the pump," said Dr. Scott Lorin, the hospital's president. "The mattress, the bed rails, the canister holes, the window shades, the ceiling, everything in the room was positive."

[...] In the United States, two million people contract resistant infections annually, and 23,000 die from them, according to the official C.D.C. estimate. That number was based on 2010 figures; more recent estimates from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine put the death toll at 162,000. Worldwide fatalities from resistant infections are estimated at 700,000.

[...] With bacteria and fungi alike, hospitals and local governments are reluctant to disclose outbreaks for fear of being seen as infection hubs. Even the C.D.C., under its agreement with states, is not allowed to make public the location or name of hospitals involved in outbreaks. State governments have in many cases declined to publicly share information beyond acknowledging that they have had cases.

All the while, the germs are easily spread — carried on hands and equipment inside hospitals; ferried on meat and manure-fertilized vegetables from farms; transported across borders by travelers and on exports and imports; and transferred by patients from nursing home to hospital and back.

C. auris, which infected the man at Mount Sinai, is one of dozens of dangerous bacteria and fungi that have developed resistance. Yet, like most of them, it is a threat that is virtually unknown to the public.

[...] Dr. Lynn Sosa, Connecticut's deputy state epidemiologist, said she now saw C. auris as "the top" threat among resistant infections. "It's pretty much unbeatable and difficult to identity," she said.

Nearly half of patients who contract C. auris die within 90 days, according to the C.D.C. Yet the world's experts have not nailed down where it came from in the first place.

'No need' to tell the public

Under her [Dr. Johanna Rhodes, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College London] direction, hospital workers used a special device to spray aerosolized hydrogen peroxide around a room used for a patient with C. auris, the theory being that the vapor would scour each nook and cranny. They left the device going for a week. Then they put a "settle plate" in the middle of the room with a gel at the bottom that would serve as a place for any surviving microbes to grow, Dr. Rhodes said.

Only one organism grew back. C. auris.

It was spreading, but word of it was not. The hospital, a specialty lung and heart center that draws wealthy patients from the Middle East and around Europe, alerted the British government and told infected patients, but made no public announcement.

"There was no need to put out a news release during the outbreak," said Oliver Wilkinson, a spokesman for the hospital.

This hushed panic is playing out in hospitals around the world. Individual institutions and national, state and local governments have been reluctant to publicize outbreaks of resistant infections, arguing there is no point in scaring patients — or prospective ones.


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:36AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:36AM (#830905)

    Also known as yeast. Just dry the room out thoroughly and treat the infection with a strong anti-fungal agent. Bleach in a strong enough concentration will kill this shit.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:43AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:43AM (#830910)

    Also known as yeast. Just dry the room out thoroughly and treat the infection with a strong anti-fungal agent. Bleach in a strong enough concentration will kill this shit.

    You've done it! Found a cure for C. auris infections! You'll get a Nobel Prize for this!

    Anyone found with the infection should just be injected with a bleach solution with a high enough concentration to kill it

    Just to make sure, we should probably have the patient drink such a solution as well.

    You've saved us all!

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:48AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:48AM (#830913) Journal

      Anyone found with the infection should just be injected with a bleach solution with a high enough concentration to kill it

      Oy! Needs to be desiccated first!

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:06AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:06AM (#830934)

      Well, when applying that cure, the patients surely won't die from the infection. ;-)

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:36AM

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:36AM (#831436)

        For the same end result, setting the patient on fire would be better, through helping reduce the hospital's heating bills.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41AM (1 child)

      by Gaaark (41) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41AM (#830950) Journal

      Don't worry, dark matter enthusiasts will have this covered in 3...2...1...

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:39PM (#831007)

        Dark matter is easy to proof. Universes without dark matter don't contain systemd.

        And yes, this post is exactly as on-topic as the one I replied to.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:24AM (#831426)

    they tried that: spraying "aerosolized hydrogen peroxide" aka bleach around the room. It didn't work.

    next idea?