The influenza
pandamic of 1918
killed more people than the World War I & II, somewhere between 20 and
40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic
in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single
year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to
1351. Known as "Spanish
Flu" or "La Grippe" the
influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.
Past 60 years since the start of the “Antibiotic
era” much has changed – not least our ability to treat to combat
infectious diseases. As we move into the 21st century, Antibiotic
resistant bacterial infections are threatening our existance and now
we are moving back to “Pre-Antibiotic era”.
Infectious diseases have been a threat to people’s
survival, health and well-being since human life began. At the beginning
of the 20th century, nearly few people died of infectious diseases but
the trend has now started escilating with the emergence of antibiotic
resistant bacterial infections in the 21st century.
The birth of the NHS in 1948 coincided with the first
antibiotics becoming widely available, although sulphonamides to treat
streptococcal infections such as scarlet fever appeared as early as
1935. The development of powerful classes of antimicrobial drugs from
the 1940s onwards, to treat many infections, has led to a dramatic
decrease in the death rate.
In 1948, rates were declining due to improvements in
sanitation, housing, diet and lifestyle, but infectious diseases
remained a serious threat to health. Measles, polio, smallpox,
diphtheria, whooping cough and mumps are all diseases that caused
illness, possible long-term disability and significant mortality,
especially in children.
Childhood immunisation programmes from the 1950s
onwards, rates of these steeply declined, with smallpox eradicated
completely. In 1950, polio could leave a person disabled for life. After
the introduction of the routine polio vaccine in 1956, the number of
cases rapidly fell to very low levels. The last case of natural polio
infection acquired in the UK was in 1984.The meningitis C vaccine,
introduced to the childhood immunisation schedule in 1999, has reduced
the number of confirmed cases after 2000.
Of course, the threat to public health from
infectious disease has not disappeared despite tremendous advances in
prevention and treatment. Infectious diseases remained important because
they were largely treatable and preventable. The ability of
micro-organisms to produce strains that are more virulent and more
resistant to treatment is one factor in the emergence of new infections
in our lifetime – these include HIV and Aids, E.coli O157, Legionnaires
disease, hepatitis C, and new variant CJD.
Also of concern is that many infectious diseases are
becoming increasingly difficult to treat because of
antimicrobial-resistant organisms. Problems occur with staphylococcal
infection (particularly MRSA), tuberculosis, salmonella and gonorrhoea.
The reasons for the development of antimicrobial
resistance are varied but inappropriate and over-use of antimicrobial
drugs over the past 50 years are contributory factors.
We are publishing information to help protect people
especialy children from the threat of infectious disease. Key to control
infections are to detect significant trends, to identify any particular
groups of the population affected, to evaluate prevention and control
measures and to alert appropriate professionals and organisations to
infectious disease threats and possibly early isolation of infected
patients.
We must be prepared for other potential problems such
as the threat of an influenza pandemic which will increase death rate
due to secondary bacterial infections similar to flu epidemic of 1918.
Knowing the world population is now five times higher
than in 1900. We
expect death rate from this infection to be ten times higher due to over
crowding, close contact, global warming and contaminated
hospital waste polluting our earth.
WHO has estimated potential worldwide death toll ranges from 7.4 million
to 180 million to 360 million, extrapolating 1918’s deaths to today’s
population.
Given global air travel, the virus & bacteria could spread swiftly,
possibly reaching all continents in three months, the WHO asserts.
The federal government fears that 9 million Americans may become
sick.
Nearly five
percent of patients in U.S. hospitals may have acquired a particular
antibiotic resistant staph infection, according to a nationwide survey
conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control
and Epidemiology (APIC).
CA-MRSA normally infect healthy adults and children, the incidence is
gradually increasing. People outside hospital can sometimes become
infected in schools, gym and prisons. This is because an entry
point (cuts, brushings wounds & dry skin with fissures) is required
for the bacteria to get into the body. Crowded nurseries and classrooms are ideal breeding grounds, as
are gyms and changing rooms where the infection can be caught simply
from sharing towels. One in every three person living in UK is said to
carry this bacteria in the hand and nostrils. Unlike normal MRSA,
community acquired MRSA produces a toxins (poison) that can rapidly eat
away at the lungs, killing within hours.
Infections caused by CA-MRSA have become a major public health threat. A single clone of community-associated MRSA, USA300, was not seen before 2000 but is now widely disseminated in 38 U.S. states, Canada, and 9 European Union countries and can
cause unusually severe human diseases, including necrotizing fasciitis, sepsis, endocarditis,
and pneumonia. Infections occur predominantly among healthy,
community-dwelling persons lacking traditional risk factors for MRSA.
Ann
of Int Medicine
Community-Acquired
Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
entering blood with helpless white blood cells unable to stop
them. This harmless bacteria that people carry on their skin,
has now suddenly becomes a dangerous predator immune to
antibiotics, chemical wash and antiseptic is threatening us all.
World Health Organization doesn't mince words: some
diseases, it says, "we will have no effective therapies within the next
ten years." Indeed, more than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause
hospital-acquired infections are resistant to at least one of the
antibiotics commonly used to treat them, and it's only going to get
worse. These bacteria is also educating other bacteria and helping them
develop resistance to antibiotics.
This may sounds like a B-movie on the Sci-Fi Channel, but the CA-MRSA
scare is all too real - one of several health alerts this year that
proved just how vulnerable we are despite all our scientific know-how
and advances in medicine. Invasive procedures, operations, plastic
surgery, transplant surgery, hip or knee replacement, open heart
surgery, bypass and minor surgical procedures will come to a grinding
halt. This is the year we learn that the very technology we’ve created
to help us live more comfortable and, yes, often healthier lives will
turn around and bite us-har
In hospital patients have many ready made entry-points such as
surgical wounds, catheters, or intravenous tubes which are like
adventure playgrounds for the bacteria. People with a weakened immune system are most at risk
from being infected by hospital strain (HA-MRSA). Typically this includes the elderly, newborn
babies, and those with health problems such as diabetes, cancer or
HIV/AIDS. Patients who have open wounds, catheters or intravenous drips,
burns, cuts, severe skin conditions are also at risk, as are those who
have recently had surgery, or take frequent courses of antibiotics.
Although MRSA infections usually develop in people being treated in
hospital, it is possible for hospital staff or visitors to become
infected if they are in one of the higher risk groups.
UK Almost 6,400 MRSA
Bacteraemia (bloodstream infections)
were recorded in acute hospitals in England in 2006/07. Contributes to
or directly causes many hundreds of deaths each year and costs the NHS
tens of millions of pounds (combined cost at least £1bn per year) and
are thought to cause at least 5000 deaths annually.
CA-MRSA is a universal problem.
However, in typical super-size fashion, the U.S. appears to be blossoming into
CA-MRSA central. Countries like Austria,
Netherlands, Korea and Hong Kong have published information about
incidence of CA-MRSA. Places as far ranging as Canada, Australia and
Scandinavia which have virtually no hospital-acquired infections
(HA-MRSA) have reported an increase in CA-MRSA. In response, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
recently funded a $9 million study aimed at identifying the most
effective weapons against MRSA and $115 Million to understand
bacterial flora in human.
This bacteria is reported to rampant in the U.S.
since 2007. CA-MRSA infects more than 150 Britons last year and the
figure is rising by more than 30 per cent a year but the true scale has
not been fully reported in UK. It is the most common cause of infectious
disease in people going into A&E in the U.S. UK Health care officials
don't think it is a major problem yet because are not really looking for
it. The NHS plans to start screening for this infection in March 2008.
New research on the threat of
community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) in primary care (UK) shows that
as many as
one in five patients who contract MRSA in the community are dead within
a year.
This is a not a
virus
and you cannot fight this infection like a common cold or flu. Bacteria is a living cell with nucleus, genes and other structures
similar to our body cells. Virus only has genes and is not said to be a
living organism. There is a new bacteria which is smaller than virus is
now known as Nanobacta.
The bacteria is commonly
carried on the skin around 30% of the healthy people (adults and
children). This bacteria has now become immune to all known antibiotics
and so is lethal if they enter your bloodstream.
The
bacteria has toxin which can destroys infection-fighting white blood
cells (immunity), putting fit, young, healthy people - including
children and babies - at threat. MRSA uses complex mechanisms to avoid
destruction by neutrophils, (human
white blood cells
that ingest and destroy bacteria).
CA-MRSA senses danger when it is exposed
to the killer chemicals released by neutrophils-such as
hydrogen peroxide,
hypochlorous acid (the active component of household bleach) or
antimicrobial proteins. The bacterium escapes harm
and turns the tables on the white blood cells, destroying them.
Panton-Valentine Leukocidin, or PVL - produced by the
CA-MRSA, which also destroys white blood cells and thus the body's
immune system in five minutes. Healthy person can die within 24 hours of
spread to the lungs due to a form of pneumonia in which the flesh is
rapidly eaten away by enzymes - the Fifty per cent of victims with
necrotising pneumonia die within the first 12-24 hours
New strains
have been reported, Flu-MRSA which is likely to spread this winter and
USA300 has also been isolated from spinal fluid similar to Meningitis.
An estimated 300,000 Britons a year pick up HA-MRSA
while being treated in hospitals and at least 5,000 die but the number
of CA-MRSA infection is estimated to rapidly increase once the screening
is introduced. Doctors and scientists are anxious to prevent
community-acquired MRSA from becoming as devastating as the version
caught in hospitals.
GPs do not know what to look for and how to manage
this infection, so we won’t know how big the problem is until MRSA
problem becomes a major problem. Symptoms range from the superficial but
painful, such as boils, to fatal blood poisoning. Recurrent infections
of the skin, cuts and grazes are properly cleaned and covered.
" We are heading towards a "pre-antibiotic era" with no effective
treatment for some infections".
U.S. and German
researchers, have found that MRSA secretes a peptide formed by amino acids - which causes immune cells,
or neutrophils (white blood cells), to burst, eliminating your body's
main defence against infection. The MRSA peptide compounds cause
inflammation, drawing the immune cells to the infection site, at which
time they destroy the immune cells. It takes only five minutes of
exposure for the immune cells to be damaged and about an hour for their
destruction. This bacteria can kill you in hours not days !!!
This is complex, as your life may depend on it,
and we don't want to lose you or see our children suffer in isolation.
We have published this website to provide useful information to
help you understand and help reduce the risk of contracting the deadly antibiotic resistant
strain of bacterial infection.
By treating patient who are carrier we (doctors) could
dangerously harm that patient by introducing systemic infection (when
performing practical procedures) and
death. Not treating these patients we may leave this agonized sick
patient to suffer pain and discomfort in isolation.
We hope the authorities (healthcare providers & insurance
companies) will make alternative arrangements to address this issue and
provide adequate care and support to both staff and MRSA positive
patients.
We congratulate Winchester Hospital Since the introduction last November
there have been no new cases of MRSA infections.
This figure covers all forms of MRSA, including bloodstream
infections (also known as bacteraemia) and wound infections. This
compares to 2007/08 when there was 11 reported bloodstream infections.
Since 1989, we have been warning
doctors, cannula manufacturers and
politicians about the danger of using cannulae and the association of
spreading antibiotic resistant bacterial infections in hospitals. To
reduce this threat we also designed two cannulae to reduce the number of
attempts, organised clinical trial and published papers "U-Cannula",
Alternative method of cannulation could reduce needlestick injuries and
the spread of hospital-acquired infections.
We hope this will make authorities
and cannula manufacturers to take a closer look at this device and bring
in changes to reduce avoidable death in hospitals and the threat of
these bacterial infection spreading in the community.
One in five family
doctors admit their knowledge of MRSA is not good enough,
according to a survey today. And two thirds of GPs say they have
not received any information on what to do if they suspect
somebody has the bug.
