GUADALAJARA - Two patients who died in the intensive care unit at IMSS Hospital 46 in Guadalajara were infected with the acinetobacter bacteria, the hospital’s director told local Spanish-language newspapers.
Maria Guadalupe Bravo said the bug is common in hospitals everywhere and denied the deaths were caused directly by the bacteria. Nonetheless, she decided to close the unit temporarily.
The intensive care unit won’t be reopened for another week until it has been thoroughly cleaned, disinfected and sterilized by hospital employees. Bravo said enforcement of hygiene procedures at the hospital, such as the washing of hands by staff, would be stepped up.
Bravo said a television report stating that five people had died from the infection was erroneous. Of the other patients who were also being treated in the intensive care unit, two have since been discharged and a third has been moved to a general ward, she said.
Local microbiologist Sergio Aguilar told Mural that acinetobacter was becoming resistant to antibiotics and for that reason the symptoms of the two patients were probably more severe.
The Infectious Disease Society of America recently named acinetobacter one of six drug-resistant bacteria for which treatments are currently lacking.
According to Cleveland.com, in a recent study analyzing acinetobacter’s genetic blueprint carried out at Case Western Reserve University, researchers found that the bacteria are adept at changing their DNA. These “resistance genes” move around so rapidly that the response to antibiotics may differ from infected patient to infected patient during the course of a single hospital outbreak, the website reported.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 100,000 people die every year as a result of hospital bugs. The institution has no specific data on acinetobacter infections.
Mexican health authorities do not disclose fatality rates from superbug infections in hospitals. Most hospital directors refuse to acknowledge that bugs present in their facilities can be a direct cause of the deaths of some patients.
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