Cases Of 'Nightmare Bacteria' Reported In Florida: CDC

Antibiotic-resistant "nightmare bacteria" infections were found more than 220 times last year in 27 states, including Florida, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week. A CDC official says that about 2 million Americans get infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year and 23,000 die.

A CDC study found that the antibiotic resistant germs can "spread like wildfire" and result in infections that are impossible to treat. Some infected patients had traveled to other countries where drug-resistant germs are more common for surgery or treatment.

In about 11 percent of cases, people in close contact with patients also sometimes carried the superbugs even though they weren't sick, creating the risk of further spreading the bacteria.

The infections are most prevalent in patients in hospitals and nursing homes who use IVs or other tubes that can become infected, according to the study.

“These verge on untreatable infections” where the only option may be supportive care — fluids and sometimes machines to maintain life to give the patient a chance to recover, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Germs with unusual resistance include those that cannot be killed by all or most antibiotics, are uncommon in a geographic area or the U.S. or have specific genes that allow them to spread their resistance to other germs, according to the CDC.

Last year, public health labs around the country were asked to watch for and quickly respond to cases of advanced antibiotic resistance. In the first nine months of the year, more than 5,770 samples were tested for these “nightmare bacteria," and one quarter were found to be hard to treat. Of these, 221 had unusual genes that resisted antibiotics.

A CDC containment strategy to stop the spread of "nightmare bacteria" calls for rapid identification, infection control assessments, testing patients without symptoms who may carry and spread the germ and continued infection control assessments until spread is stopped. The study said health departments using the approach have conducted infection control assessments and colonization screenings within 48 hours of finding unusual resistance and have reported no further transmission during follow-up over several weeks.

"It's reassuring to see that state and local experts, using our containment strategy, identified and stopped these resistant bacteria before they had the opportunity to spread," said Schuchat.

How can the public help stem the spread of nightmare bacteria? The CDC offers these suggestions:

• Tell your doctors if you recently had health care in another country.
• Talk with your doctors about preventing infections, taking care of chronic conditions to help avoid them, and getting vaccines to prevent them.
• Wash your hands regularly and keep cuts clean until healed.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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