# Health officials warn hospitals of Afghan bug



## Blackadder1916 (13 Dec 2007)

*Health officials warn hospitals of Afghan bug*
Threat posed by highly resistant bacteria underlines lack of preparedness


> Tom Blackwell,  National Post
> Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
> 
> Federal authorities are warning hospitals across the country to beware of a highly drug resistant bacteria that wounded troops are bringing back from Afghanistan -- and that could inadvertently be spread to civilian patients.
> ...




Articles referenced in the above piece are at:
BMC Infectious Diseases - Multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter infections in critically injured Canadian Forces soldiers
Wound Care Canada - Acinetobacter Infections in Wounded Soldiers: Implications for Canadian Hospitals (article available in PDF)


----------



## Armymedic (14 Dec 2007)

I sat in a symposium period about this.

The NATO medical system can not conclusively prove that this microbe and the infection is cause is exclusive to the OEF and OIF AORs. They have other (mostly US) soldiers whom seem to contract the disease caused by the microbe along the chain of evac.

The best theory is that it is an opportunistic microbe that will only appear in injured tissue where other microbe have been destroyed by antibiotic therapy. There is also no recorded cases of wounded Afghans contracting the infection.

Studies continue.


----------



## PMedMoe (14 Dec 2007)

Not to mention that more and more microbes, bacteria etc are becoming "drug resistant" due to overuse (and misuse) of antibiotics and antimicrobial/antibacterial products.


----------



## geo (14 Dec 2007)

Heh.... talk about fighting for your life.

WRT StMike's comment about the Afghans who never contracted the illness... you have to consider that given the sanitary & health conditions in Afghanistan, it's only the strong that survive & thee people have been exposed to so many different bugs in the past that they have become resistant to most of them.

I remember when the DART team went to Pakistan and the engineers set up their ROWPU + started to distribute clean water.  The locals got sick because their system was used to the contaminants in their water & pure clean water was a shock to them.

Who woulda thought ???


----------



## GAP (20 Dec 2007)

BioMed Central Blog 
 Thursday Dec 20, 2007 
Article Link

Canadian TV provides excellent coverage of open access research on superbug afflicting soliders in Afghanistan

It's always nice to see research from BioMed Central journals covered in the mainstream media, and  Soldiers bringing superbug back from Kandahar from Canadian broadcaster CTV is an excellent example, featuring research recently published by Dr Homer Tsien and colleages in BMC Infectious Diseases.

It is currently the top story on the CTV website, and the story includes a video of the newscast concerned, along with a more in-depth interview with Dr Tsien.

Perhaps most impressively, CTV have done a great job of providing a route for readers to find out more by linking directly to the open access research article concerned. It's surprisingly rare that news outlets provide such links, but kudos to the CTV team for doing so. BioMed Central is working with other news organizations to encourage them to do the same.
More on link


----------



## geo (20 Dec 2007)

Praise for Cdn MsM?  

Really?

Who woulda thought?


----------

