Antibiotic Superbugs CRKP & MRSA: Who's at Risk?

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   Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

   Misuse of antibiotics has led to a global health threat: the rise of dangerous—or even fatal—superbugs. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is now attacking both patients in hospitals and also in the community and a deadly new multi-drug resistant bacteria called carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP is now in the headlines. Last year, antibiotic resistant infections killed 25,000 people in Europe, the Guardian reports.
   
   
   Unless steps are taken to address this crisis, the cures doctors have counted on to battle bacteria will soon be useless. CRKP has now been reported in 36 US states—and health officials suspect that it may also be triggering infections in the other 14 states where reporting isn’t required. High rates have been found in long-term care facilities in Los Angeles County, where the superbug was previously believed to be rare, according to a study presented earlier this month. CRKP is even scarier than MRSA because the new superbug is resistant to almost all antibiotics, while a few types of antibiotics still work on MRSA. Who’s at risk for superbugs—and what can you do to protect yourself and family members? Here’s a guide to these dangerous bacteria.
   
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   http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhe … -mrsa-risk
   
   looks like we are going to have another world-wide health crisis on our hands..

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   knolyourselfposted 13 years ago

   The hippies predicted that. The overuse of antibiotics. Capitalistic medicine.

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   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   This is a major problem in the UK and has been for some years now (why did I not think about writing a hub about it?) It's not just the ones you mentioned above, MRSA and CRKP but one called necrotising fasciitis which is possibly an MRSA.
   
   People going into hospital for a simple operation and coming out minus a leg or something because this necrotising fasciitis set in.
   
   Basically it east your body from the inside out.
   
   I might not even have spelt it right.
   
   There has been some real horror stories in the Press about it over the last 15 years.
   
   Even newborn babies in the maternity units are not immune.
   
   The Press blamed it on lack of hygiene as much as anything. Maggie thatcher's government did away with normal hospital cleaners who came under the jurisdiction of the hospital and brought in private firms who were all out for profit, not cleanliness.
   
   Hospitals used to and should IMO, smell of disinfectant. It's too watered down now.
   
   So yeah blame people for overuse of antibiotics, and for people not finishing their course, but how many people catch MRSA at home?

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   knolyourselfposted 13 years ago

   Also factory farms using antibiotics in all farm animals.

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      IzzyMposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      This is bad. I don't know how bad, but bad. That and feeding vegetarian animals like cows, meat. Britain has mad cow disease because they fed the cows bits and pieces from infected pigs that should have been discarded, not made into animal feed.

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