Uncommon Bacteria Found In 7 NY Babies, 4 Die

Uncommon Bacteria Found In 7 NY Babies, 4 Die

From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
7-31-4

Hello, Jeff - This is a very perplexing situation at the Medical Center. It does sound as though Dr. Michael Gewitz is trying to quell some culpability on the part of the medical center. He is attempting to claim the infant deaths probably would have occurred anyway, even if the babies were not infected.

In the summer of 1983, the same neonatal intensive care unit and the maternity floor had a problem with infection control and had reoccurring Staph outbreaks throughout the summer. I had firsthand knowledge of a patient and her newborn daughter who were infected with Staph that summer. The hospitals answer to the second Staph outbreak was to send the infected baby home as soon as possible and the severely ill Mom was transferred to the Oncology floor. (She did not have cancer however the hospital transferred her due to the Staph infection. The mother had gone into respiratory arrest during the C-Section after given an overdose of anesthesia.)

Hopefully, the hospital will find out HOW the bacteria had infected the babies.

Patricia Doyle


http://www.wnbc.com/health/3596719/detail.html



Uncommon Bacteria Found In 7 Babies, 4 Die

UPDATED: 2:12 pm EDT July 30, 2004

VALHALLA, N.Y. -- Seven premature babies at a Westchester hospital tested positive for bacteria rarely found in infants, and four of them have died.

The extremely premature babies all suffered multiple medical problems, and two who died were not expected to survive regardless of the bacteria, Westchester Medical Center officials told The Journal News. Some weighed less than a pound.

Dr. Michael Gewitz, director of pediatrics, told the newspaper it was nearly impossible to say whether the bacteria, acinetobacter, contributed to the babies' deaths. He said some just had it on their skin, not in their blood.

The bacteria, which is not uncommon in ailing adult patients, was identified by routine blood cultures about two weeks ago at Westchester Medical Center in a baby who had been transferred from another hospital.

Other babies were checked for the bacteria, and the six who tested positive were isolated, Gewitz said. The surviving babies are being treated with Antibiotics .

Twenty-nine other babies tested negative for the bacteria, which spreads by contact. The hospital's neonatal intensive-care unit is a regional center that typically treats the sickest premature infants in the Hudson Valley region.

Acinetobacter infections might cause a fever or other symptoms in adults, but the babies showed no signs of the bacteria's presence, Gewitz said in the newspaper's Friday report. Testing positive for acinetobacter does not mean there is an infection.

"In these babies, it's hard to make that call because they have so many other serious problems associated with their basic illness of being extremely premature," he said.

© 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Some information about Actinobacteria:
Actinobacteria

The Actinobacteria are a group of Gram-positive bacteria. Most are found in the soil, and they include some of the most common soil life, playing important roles in decomposition and humus formation. Some form branching filaments, which somewhat resemble the mycelia of the unrelated fungi, among which they were originally classified as the Actinomycetes. A few forms are pathogens, such as Mycobacterium[?]. All are aerobic.

The Actinobacteria correspond to the high G+C group of Gram-positive bacteria, forms whose DNA contains unusually large amounts of the bases guanine and cytosine. Representative genera include:



Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health

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