New CRKP super-bug infecting hundreds in Southern California hospitals

Filed March 25th, 2011 Joshua Sophy

Health officials in southern California are trying to prevent panic as a Superbug continues to spread among hospitals.

According to The Daily Mail (U.K.), reports of a spread of the drug-resistant virus Klebsiella pnueumoniae (CRKP) have raised concern at some hospitals.

About 40 percent of people infected with CRKP, a bacteria related to E. coli, die. It causes severe kidney damage and has fought any antibiotics used to treat it.

The Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Health confirmed that 350 people were infected with CRKP during a 7-month period during 2010. Among those cases, more than half (53 percent) were acquired from acute-care hospitals. At least 41 percent were acquired at long-term hospitals and another 6 percent from nursing homes.

People – especially the elderly – are most likely to acquire CRKP. Long stays in a hospital or taking antibiotics for extended periods of time increase the risk of acquiring the Superbug.

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