Infected endoscopes are spreading many things that people have never heard about. UCLA Medical Center patients may have been already exposed to these drug-resistant bacteria. This outbreak is connected to the specialized endoscopes that were inserted to the mouth of the patient. It was threaded throughout the gastrointestinal tract.
After the news of the UCLA case was released, the FDA quickly warned the hospitals on the 19th day of February. They informed the public about duodenoscopes that are difficult to clean completely.
Here are the five important things you must know about superbug outbreak:
This has already happened before. This is the same infection that is linked to the medical center in Seattle, from the year of 2012 up to 2014. Past outbreaks were recorded in Pittsburgh, Chicago and elsewhere. 70 outbreaks were recorded in the United States. And not all of them were drug-resistant "superbugs".
Apart from it, these endoscopes may be spreading more things people have never heard about. Previous cases about the contaminated endoscopes usually spread bacteria that have no chance to be treated. They usually involved unusual bacteria that allowed them to be recognized.
According to Conservative Read, devices also remain contaminated despite the cleaning procedures it went through. The previous outbreaks cannot be traced to malfunction or lapse in cleaning the scopes. This is normally linked to the contents of the electronics and lenses. These devices cannot even be sterilized at their higher temperatures. The scopes are found to be expensive that fall at the range of 10,000 dollars to 40,000 dollars.
Another important thing people should know is that this means this problem cannot be fixed alone. If the hospitals and procedural lapses are linked to this outbreak, it may still be complicated to give solution to it. High level disinfection may eliminate the risk of the transmission of infection, but not to eliminate it.
One more important thing patients need to know is that the superbug outbreak might put them at risk. The treatment decision involves a good conversation between patients and doctors about the benefits and risks. Steve Brozak, says that doctors believe that there is really no problem. It seems that they just beginning to take hold of the possible risks of these endoscopes. There are a lot of information that people still do not know.
