New Bacterial Infection Linked to Military
Report: Troops Transmitted Mysterious Bacteria That Has Killed 7 And Affected Military And Civilians Alike
By JOHN HENDREN
Feb. 8, 2008
Troops arriving home from Iraq and Afghanistan have been carrying a mysterious, deadly bacteria, according to a new magazine report.
Doctors have linked the bacterium acinetobacter baumannii to at least seven deaths, as well as to loss of limbs and other severe ailments, according to the report, which found the bacterium has spread quickly since the war in Afghanistan began in the fall of 2001
Acinetobacter baumannii has been found in military hospitals in Germany, the Washington, D.C., area and Texas -- the primary destinations of wounded service members from the two war zones. And it has now spread to civilians, according to the report.
"The outbreak began traveling with patients or nonpatients from Iraq all the way back to Walter Reed," said Dr. Rox Anderson at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Timothy Endy, a retired Army colonel now teaching infectious disease medicine at the Upstate Medical University of the State University of New York, said the outbreak might be the largest of its kind to spread through hospitals in history.
Doctors quoted in the magazine article agreed. "Of the infectious disease problems that come out of the conflict, it is the most important complication we've seen," Dr. Glenn Wortmann, acting chief of infectious disease at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, said in the February issue of Proceedings, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, a professional organization focused on naval issues.
The report was released to subscribers of the magazine this week.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/story?id=4233448&page=1
Linked from ICasualties.org
Actually not so new. Go here and read several reports going back to 2005. How they can say it's new, is very odd since the media has been reporting on this for a very long time.
http://namguardianangel.blogspot.com/search?q=Acinetobacter+baumannii
Thanks Kathy for keeping tabs on this bug!
ReplyDeleteAcinetobacter baumannii is neither new or mysterious. This ABC story is a cut and paste from a real story by Chas Henry for a naval publication, which is a pretty move for them considering the extent to which the DoD has tried to keep this under the wire.
The real story can be read at www.chashenry.com along with some television work his has produced on Ab.
Since we last spoke Acinetobacter baumannii strains from the military evacuation system have spread to hospitals all across our country and have killed many people.
This could have been contained.
Marcie Hascall Clark
www.iraqinfections.org
Marcie thanks so much for the work you are doing on this. You'd think the media would have taken this seriously since it's been reported for so long and very little has been done to address it. If Britney or another celebrity had it, or some sports player, they'd all be covering it.
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