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Rare blood infection surfaces in soldiers

 

 

Friday, November 19, 2004 Posted: 9:41 AM EST (1441 GMT)

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/conditions/11/19/soldiers.blood.reut/index.html

 

ATLANTA,

Georgia (Reuters) -- An unexpectedly high number of U.S. soldiers

injured in the Middle East and Afghanistan are testing positive for a

rare, hard-to-treat blood infection in military hospitals, Army doctors

reported on Thursday.

A total of 102 soldiers were found to

be infected with the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. The infections

occurred among soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in

Washington, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and three

other sites between January 1, 2002, and August 31, 2004.

Although

it was not known where the soldiers contracted the infections, the Army

said the recent surge highlighted a need to improve infection control

in military hospitals.

Eighty-five of the bloodstream infections

occurred among soldiers serving in Iraq, the area around Kuwait and

Afghanistan, the U.S. Army said in a report published on Thursday by

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Military hospitals typically see about one case per year.

Army

investigators said they did not know whether the soldiers contracted

the infections on the battlefield, during medical treatment on the

front line or following evacuation to Walter Reed, Landstuhl and other

military medical locations.

"This organism is very widespread in

the environment, and some of these patients are arriving with

infections," said Maj. Paul Scott, a doctor in the Army's center for

health promotion and preventive medicine.

Scott said there was no evidence that biochemical agents played a

role in spreading the infection.

A.

baumannii, which is found in water and soil and resistant to many types

of antibiotics, surfaces occasionally in hospitals, often spread among

patients in intensive care units.

The infection was also found in soldiers with traumatic injuries to

their arms, legs and extremities during the Vietnam War.

Spread

of the infection is often halted when health-care workers wash their

hands and those of their patients with alcohol swabs, actively monitor

those with wounds to the extremities and promptly identify and

quarantine the infected.

Development of better drugs is needed to

help contain future outbreaks of the infection, Army officials said. In

some cases, the only effective antibiotic is colistin, an older drug

that is rarely prescribed because of its high toxicity.

The injured soldiers are being treated with a spectrum of drugs and

are expected to recover from their infections.

Health-care

providers in the United States are urged to watch for A. baumannii

infections among soldiers who have been recently treated at military

hospitals, especially those who were in intensive care units.

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