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Search results for "MRSA" OR "MSSA"
81 records
found from year 2005
| View search results from other years: 2006 2004 |
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| Thursday, 13 October 2005 12:04 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Scientists hope to develop ways to tackle drug-resistant bacteria such as the MRSA superbug after discovering powerful new antibiotics in fungi.
Fungus from European pine forests was found to contain a peptide (protein compound) as powerful as penicillin and vancomycin. In lab tests, this “plectasin” peptide killed strains Streptococcus bacteria that are resistant to conventional medicines.
Antibiotics have long been produced from fungi and soil bacteria but it has been 10 years since a new class was discovered from these sources.
The researchers, from the US and the Netherlands, said the finding could lead to new treatments for a number of diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia, sepsis (blood-poisoning) and skin infections.
Dr Robert Leher, from the University of California, said: "This finding, and the existence of about 200,000 additional species of fungi, opens up a vast universe to explore for novel peptide antibiotics."
He added that plectasin-based antibiotics could be on the market by 2012.
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| Thursday, 13 October 2005 09:05 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Aberdeen Royal Infirmary has closed two wards for a £1million refit in the hope of creating an MRSA-free zone.
The management at the hospital are working closely with their infection control team on the surgical wards in the upgrade.
The refit will give some patients en-suite facilities and it will bring fire safety and other medical requirements up to standard.
The control team will test the air in the two departments at the end of the restructuring to ensure there's no trace of MRSA.
NHS Grampian interim chief executive Alex Smith said: "Wards 31 and 32 will have over £900,000 invested, bringing the facilities up to specification as detailed by the service users”.
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| Wednesday, 12 October 2005 10:53 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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A Health Protection Scotland report has called on the Scottish Executive to do more to tackle MRSA after the latest figures revealed that rates of the hospital superbug have remained steady since records began.
The HPS found the number of hospital patients with the bacteria in their blood between April and June this year dropped to 215, compared to around 250 for the same period last year.
Between 2001 and 2005, overall MRSA rates have remained between 0.15 and 0.2 per thousand beds, with “no significant change” in infection levels since 2001.
Tory health spokeswoman Nanette Milne said: "The biggest challenge is still avoiding infection in the first place."
Shona Robison, the health spokeswoman for the SNP, said more must be done.
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| Sunday, 09 October 2005 11:40 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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MRSA in Britain’s hospital wards could be wiped out by a quick and simple test.
The molecular test costs £15 and the results are available in only two hours, at present the current test can take three days or more to provide a result.
The new test is a nasal swab and is currently being piloted at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham as well as a hospital in London.
Last night a leading microbiologist called for it to be introduced as soon as possible.
Dr Ian Gould, a consultant microbiologist from Aberdeen University and an expert on MRSA, said, “At the moment, much of the spread of MRSA is due to people being admitted to hospital carrying the bacteria, who then pass it on to other patients who are perhaps more susceptible to the bug.
“People are often screened but to get the results takes three days and by that time the virus could have spread. The test costs 50p.
“However a new, simple molecular test, which provides a result in just two hours, is now available at a cost of £15.
“In the long run it could save lives and many thousands of pounds.
“Someone with a serious MRSA infection could cost the NHS as much as £15,000 in treatment, drugs and their prolonged stay in hospital”.
Dr Gould says currently there is no proper monitoring of the bug, adding, “At the moment, one can only hazard a guess at the number of MRSA infections every year. A significant proportion of people will go home from hospital with MRSA without knowing they have it. Around one per cent of people walking down a city centre street will be carrying the bug”.
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| Sunday, 09 October 2005 10:29 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Joshua Jefferies Ralph is fighting for his life after catching the MRSA superbug twice in a few weeks.
He was struck down by the killer bug shortly after he was born 10 weeks prematurely.
Dad Darren Ralph, 34, said: "I'm furious. We were told he was clear but he obviously wasn't. Surely they can tell?"
The trust which runs St Michael's hospital in Bristol said: "Joshua had been tested as clear but must've still been carrying the bacteria in very small quantities.
"We are screening all babies and no more will be admitted into his ward until further notice”.
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| Wednesday, 28 September 2005 10:32 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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The Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley has revealed that five babies in its care have become colonised with the hospital acquired infection MRSA.
It is not known whether the infection was brought into the hospital or acquired on the ward but none of the infected children are thought to have been adversely affected by the bug.
One has been allowed home while the others are being monitored in the hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit.
Dr Elizabeth Biggs, control of infection doctor at the hospital, said: "Colonisation means that the MRSA bacterium has been found to be present on the individual at that time but that it was not causing an infection."
The hospital has now stepped up its infection control measures.
Consultant paediatrician, Dr Graham Stewart, said: "The parents of the children identified with MRSA have been kept fully informed and we will continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis."
Professor Ian Gould, a microbiologist at Aberdeen University, told The Scotsman it was extremely rare to find MRSA on children in the UK. "It can lead to very serious infections... but the most intriguing question is how they get it in the first place."
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| Thursday, 22 September 2005 09:27 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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A team of engineers from Warwick University and doctors at Birmingham's Heart of England Hospital (HEE) are developing an electronic nose that can detect the hospital superbug MRSA.
The £60,000 device could help boost efforts to tackle any outbreaks by tracking MRSA within 15 minutes, the New Scientist reports.
At present laboratory tests routinely used to identify the antibiotic-resistant infection takes two or three days to complete but scientists are working to reduce it to two hours.
The device works by smelling out the unique cocktail of volatile organic com£that MRSA produces. It has neural network software which can be trained to recognise the superbug's smell print which then can alert the doctor to any infection.
Dr David Morgan a surgeon at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, who came up with the idea said: "I was operating on neck abscesses on two different patients and noticed their infections had slightly different smells, so I wondered if a machine could work out what the bacterial infections were from the smell alone”.
E-nose was tested out using swabs from sufferers of MRSA, and the more easily treatable MSSA superbug. The e-nose had a 96% success detection rate for MRSA but it cannot differentiate between certain strains.
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| Tuesday, 20 September 2005 08:49 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Scientists from Brunel University claim that medical implants coated with a diamond-like material could help the risk of rejection and infections such as MRSA.
The scientists claim that the coating can be used for a wide variety of purposes in engineering and aerospace as well as medicine.
The chemically-inert diamond-like carbon (DLC) material can be used to coat plastics, metals and other natural materials used in implants.
Knee implants with a DLC coating have been successfully fitted to two arthritic patients allergic to the metal components underneath.
Researcher Professor Joe Franks said: "We have developed coatings that can be used for catheters and various medical implants that go through the skin.
"The coating is important because it prevents colonization of the tissue by bacteria, such as the superbug MRSA”.
Professor Gordon Blunn, of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at University College London, was involved in fitting the knee implants.
He said both patients were allergic to the chromium which is contained in the most durable and long-lasting knee implants.
The only alternative would have been to have fitted less hard-wearing implants that could easily have worn out.
"By using DLC we were able to seal off the metal from the surrounding body fluids to create a very, very hard surface which did not cause problems with allergic reactions," he told the BBC News website.
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| Wednesday, 14 September 2005 11:36 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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New research by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) has found that patients' notes, pens and computer keyboards may be helping to spread the MRSA super bug in hospitals.
The study in an intensive care unit found evidence of MRSA contamination on a wide range of surfaces including hands and aprons, with notes and charts raising a particular problem because they are difficult to clean.
Dr Peter Wilson, a consultant microbiologist at UCLH, was outlining his research on how the hospital environment contributes to MRSA transmission at the Health Protection Agency's annual conference at the University of Warwick.
He said that intensive care patients were handled frequently, meaning that hand hygiene was particularly important to stopping MRSA spreading.
But Dr Wilson said that cleaning hands as often as was needed was very difficult. "If 100% compliance were enforced, 33 minutes in every hour would be spent cleaning the hands," he said.
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| Tuesday, 13 September 2005 09:35 |
| BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk |
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Dr Elizabeth Haworth of The Health Protection Agency's (HPA) warned at a conference that pressure to meet government targets may have undermined attempts to combat an outbreak of a virulent bug that kills more patients than MRSA.
The hospital-acquired infection Clostridium difficile struck nearly 44,500 patients, mostly over 65, in England last year. But it first hit the headlines in June when it was disclosed that more than 300 patients had been infected at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire.
But Dr Elizabeth Haworth, of the south-east division, said there had been pressure to meet targets on treatment and waiting lists. This meant a large isolation ward had possibly been reopened for general medical patients too soon.
"Unfortunately that was the time when the spread to other parts of the hospital was recognised. It was acting too soon and that is an example of tensions between targets and good infection control. The ward should probably have been kept as an isolation ward for several weeks until things were under control," she said.
A Department of Health spokesperson told the BBC: "Many hospitals meet access targets and keep infection rates down.
"The NHS runs at high bed occupancy rates because it is treating more patients and cutting waiting lists.
"Increased activity means that we need to work even harder to reduce the risk of infection and this is what the NHS is doing.
"We acknowledge that high capacity usage is a contributory factor in dealing with infection rates and this is why we are putting in so much extra capacity, more staff and the biggest hospital-building programme in the history of the NHS”.
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