Check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention steps on how to protect yourself and your family.
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Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria are projected to increase in the United States if no action is taken soon, but a national effort could prevent more than half a million infections in five years, a new study finds.
In 2011, there were 310,000 cases of infection in the United States from four types of nasty bacteria that are usually acquired in hospitals: carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile. (Infections with C. difficile, which can cause severe diarrhea, are not usually resistant to antibiotics, but people who take antibiotics are more prone to these infections.)
In five years, the number of infections is estimated to increase 10 percent, to 340,000 per year, according to the study, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, if health professionals take immediate action to better prevent the spread of these diseases, and use antibiotics more judiciously, more than 600,000 infections and 37,000 deaths could be prevented in five years, the study found.
What's more, coordinating efforts between hospitals would be even more effective than individual hospitals working by themselves, the study showed. For example, when a patient with an antibiotic-resistant infection is transferred from one hospital to another, workers should notify the new hospital about the bacteria.
"Antibiotic-resistant infections in health care settings are a growing threat in the United States, killing thousands and thousands of people each year,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a statement. "We can dramatically reduce these infections" by improving antibiotic use and infection control, he said. [6 Superbugs to Watch Out For]
In the study, the researchers looked at what would happen if a person with a CRE infection was treated within a network of 10 hospitals that were sharing patients.
If the hospitals maintained their current efforts to prevent infection, 2,000 patients would subsequently become infected with CRE over five years, the researchers found. If the hospitals increased their efforts to prevent the bacteria from spreading, but acted alone, 1,500 patients would get CRE. But if the hospitals worked together, just 400 patients would get CRE, meaning that the coordinated effort would reduce CRE infections by 81 percent, compared with the status quo, the researchers said.
So far, "independent, institution-based efforts to prevent transmission have been inadequate," the researchers wrote in the study, published this week in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Now, coordinated efforts are needed.
Patients can also help stop the spread of infections by telling their doctor if they were hospitalized somewhere else with an infection, washing their hands often, and asking their health care providers to wash their hands before beginning care, said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
Article originally appeared on Fox News
]]>A variety of studies and reports over the years have put the average bacteria per square inch on a toilet seat somewhere between 50 and almost 300 for household potties and over 1,000 for the public varieties. Yet our own handheld electronics harbor even more bacteria than that.
Smartphones Your smartphone is home to your photos, music, contacts, productivity apps and odds are at least one game featuring a bird, zombie, fruit or farm. Oh, and there’s something else on your smartphone, too — loads of fecal coliforms. Joining the coliforms are Streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus and a host of other -ococci.
A 2013 project at the University of Surrey perfectly illustrates the situation.
Bacteriology students made imprints of their phones in Petri dishes, and after three days, they saw examples of many of the aforementioned bacteria — plus one particularly hairy case of Bacillius mycoides. It’s really not surprising that the device that goes everywhere from public transportation to public restrooms to not-so-public germ repositories (aka our own homes) is a hot bed for bacteria.
Even back in 2012, when iPhones only offered us 4.5 inches of germ-covered surface, University of Arizona microbiologist Chuck Gerba found cellphones carried 10 times more bacteria than most toilet seats. In 2013, Mashable put that number much higher, claiming that our phones may boast a whopping 25,107 bacteria per square inch. But your smartphone is just one of the worst offenders, not the only one, as this black-light-enhanced demonstration from British business services group Initial reveals.
Here are four more gadgets to rival any restroom when it comes to germs:
Tablets/e-readers — Just think of them as smartphones with fewer features and more surface area when it comes to the germ load tablets and e-readers pack. One iPad tested by British consumer magazine Which? found 600 units of Staphylococcus aureus alone.
Game controllers — With almost 5 times more bacteria than your toilet seat, your game controller has probably still seen scarier stuff (like that boss faceoff with Sephiroth). Still, E. coli is among the potential offenders.
Keyboards — Your keyboard could be home to anywhere from three times more bacteria than your toilet seat to almost three times that of a public toilet seat. Some studies found 3,000 bacteria per square inch on computer keyboards and 1,600 on the average computer mouse.
Remote controls — While likely cleaner than a public toilet seat, remotes still boast a bit more bacteria than some home-throne estimates with 70 present per square inch.
So how do we handle all of this bacterial buildup?
Step one: Remember the bathroom is no place for a phone (that you don’t want covered in fecal coliforms).
Step two: Wash your hands before handling your devices and use Armor Mist once a day.
Step three: Use Armor Mist to keep your favorite handhelds tidy
But if you only do one thing, let it be step two.
After all, you know what else has more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat? You do. A lot more.
Story originally appeared in Forbes
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