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Source: http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120211/NEWS0107/202110382/
Greek doctors battle hospital superbug
By Bloomberg News
Published: February 11. 2012 4:00AM PST
BERLIN ? Greek doctors are fighting a new invisible foe every day at their hospitals: a pneumonia-causing superbug that most existing antibiotics can?t kill.
The culprit is spreading through health centers already weighed down by a shortage of nurses. The hospital-acquired germ killed as many as half of people with blood cancers infected at Laiko General Hospital, a 500-bed facility in Athens.
The drug-resistant K. pneumoniae bacteria have a genetic mutation that allows them to evade such powerful drugs as AstraZeneca?s Merrem and Johnson & Johnson?s Doribax. A 2010 survey found 49 percent of K. pneumoniae samples in Greece aren?t killed by the antibiotics of last resort, known as carbapenems, according to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. Many doctors have even tried colistin, a 50-year-old drug so potent that it can damage kidneys...
Greek doctors battle hospital superbug
By Bloomberg News
Published: February 11. 2012 4:00AM PST
BERLIN ? Greek doctors are fighting a new invisible foe every day at their hospitals: a pneumonia-causing superbug that most existing antibiotics can?t kill.
The culprit is spreading through health centers already weighed down by a shortage of nurses. The hospital-acquired germ killed as many as half of people with blood cancers infected at Laiko General Hospital, a 500-bed facility in Athens.
The drug-resistant K. pneumoniae bacteria have a genetic mutation that allows them to evade such powerful drugs as AstraZeneca?s Merrem and Johnson & Johnson?s Doribax. A 2010 survey found 49 percent of K. pneumoniae samples in Greece aren?t killed by the antibiotics of last resort, known as carbapenems, according to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. Many doctors have even tried colistin, a 50-year-old drug so potent that it can damage kidneys...