Rare blood infection shows up in US Soldiers

From MyWay/Reuters comes this tale of epidemiology: bq. An expectedly 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. bq. 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 Jan. 1, 2002, and Aug. 31, 2004. bq. 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. Sounds like they need to beef up procedures at their hospitals. This report from the German Innovations Report outlines why: bq. Acinetobacter baumannii, the hospital opportunist Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen operating in hospitals creating serious infections such as pneumonia. It principally affects patients who have weakened health and this is why we call it opportunistic. Moreover, the mortality rate from these infections are usually high given, on the one hand, the weakness of the patient and, on the other, A. baumannii is resistant to many antibiotics. Furthermore, once a specific course of treatment is prescribed for A. Baumannii, the pathogen has a great capacity for acquiring resistance to these antibiotics. Our own Center for Disease Control has a report of an incident in Taiwan where the infection rate went from 0% to 6.5% in about two years. Nasty stuff...