Local doctor speaks out about “Superbug” outbreak
Federal and state health officials are looking into a superbug outbreak at one of the world’s top hospitals in Los Angeles. More than 170 patients may have been exposed to the potentially deadly bacteria called CRE.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are closely monitoring the antibiotic resistant superbug linked to the deaths of at least two people at the Ronald Reagan UCLA medical Center. Five others have also been infected with CRE. It may have been spread during complex endoscopic procedures that took place between last October and January of this year.
“When it gets out of intestinal tract into the bloodstream,” Dr. Williams Schaffner of Vanderbilt Medical Center explained, “It can create a very serious disease, indeed with fatality rates approaching 50 percent.”
As news spreads about the superbug, a lot of people have questions about it. It’s important to note, it doesn’t affect patients who have undergone routine colonoscopies. Instead the concern is for the patients who have had procedures in their intestinal tracts, including gall bladder.
Dr. Dan Luba with Monterey Bay G.I. Consultants showed us how the endoscopic biliary examination (ERCP) works. Cameras and other devices are attached to narrow tubes which are then used to do examinations. Sometimes growths are removed and sometimes stents are put in. doctors can take pictures and video, then use this information to treat intestinal conditions and sometimes prevent cancer. It’s a less invasive procedure compared to the alternative – surgery. But what happened this week could prompt the medical community and the manufacturer to change the procedures.
“We (the medical community) are going to have to look at that and see whether we need to take some other precautions and look at things and maybe change some of our policies,” Dr. Luba said.
Many of the policies are stringent. They include constant hand washing, even training and testing the cleaning crews. However, the FDA warns that the bacteria could still live on instruments that have already been cleaned.
This outbreak isn’t isolated to UCLA. Other hospitals in Seattle, Chicago and Pittsburgh have reported infections in the last year. in the meantime, the patients who may have been exposed to the bacteria are being offered home-testing kits that would then be analyzed by the hospital.
