(Image Source: The Daily Mail)
BY CHRISTINE SLUSSER
ANCHOR: CHANCE SEALES
You're watching multisource health news analysis from Newsy
There’s a ...fairly... new super bug in town-- known as CRKP. There were 350 reported cases of the antibiotic-resistant infection in California between June and December of 2010. Media outlets whipped out their medical authorities to explain.
First to CBN News-- who spoke with Dr. Andrew Fishman.
FISHMAN: “The scary part about these cases are that it’s a bacteria that is pretty common, but develops resistance to mostly the anti-biotics that we have. These are usually in patients that have previously either been in a nursing home or in other hospitals...”
...and CNN spoke with its Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen...who had a grim outlook on what happens if you get bit by the bug.
“I was corresponding with a doctor in Israel just now because they’ve had one of the biggest outbreaks ever, and there, the death rate from this bug was 44%...Alright? And this is a place with good health care. So 44%...and he thinks it’s maybe a but lower in other places, but still, when it kills about a third or more of the people who get it, that’s pretty serious. So you really wanna work on prevention.”
Good Morning America spoke with a big dog of its own--Dr. Richard Besser, former director of the CDC in Atlanta. He says this time around--when people hear the word “super bug”--they should be scared. He adds- it’s up to the hospitals to stop the spread.
BESSER: “A lot of it comes down to hospitals. They need to make sure that health care workers aren’t spreading from patient to patient. That’s mainly what takes place. (flash) When you’re sitting there with your relative, if anyone comes in and wants to touch your relative without washing their hands, you have to say something. Because that will make a difference. It will make sure--because in some of these cases when they look, people aren’t washing their hands.”
California’a ABC-affiliate KABC reports CRKP is in the same lethal family as eColi. And naturally...it also scouted out a doctor. Dr. Kimberly Shriner says it could be the medical providers fault the bug became “super” in the first place.
SHRINER: “‘"One of the real reasons we're having problems with antibiotic resistance is the overuse of antibiotics. We perhaps are a little bit too quick to put people on antibiotics for things that maybe really don't warrant them.’”
REPORTER: So what can you do stop the spread of superbugs? Dr. Shriner says if your doctor says you don't need antibiotics, listen to what he or she is trying to tell you.”
The bug is mainly reported in elderly patients who are in and out of hospitals frequently, use defibrillators or catheters--and over half the time are female. Wired reports with alarm the growing number of cases...
“By 2000, that same resistance pattern surfaced in hospitals in Manhattan: first one, then another, then a third and fourth. Then it began to spread to cities where New Yorkers vacation, and then to countries where they travel. Now, more than a decade later, it has reached at least 37 states and at least a dozen countries around the world.”
LA’s KTLA reports- CRKP is treatable with an antibiotic called Challistin- but the drug has some risky side effects and it doesn’t always work.
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