28 people with hospital germ infected

In a Cologne practice, 28 people were infected with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, when you got the pain of a syringe against your back. Several patients developed cerebral inflammation, a 84 skin-year-old Patient died of multi-organ failure. It is still unclear where the germs originate in the practice. the Clara Hellner

It is the nightmare of every doctor: A Patient infected with a harmless treatment with a dangerous germ, is seriously ill and dies at the end even to that. In a Cologne practice, perhaps this is exactly what happened. According to the health Department in the city were infected in the affected practice of 28 people with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a syringe with anti-inflammatories and painkillers were against their back problems, for example, a herniated disc,. Several of them diseased, in consequence of a life-threatening brain inflammation of the skin. An 84-year-old man had emergency surgery after the treatment and died a failure a short time after that, to the multi-organ. The Doctors who treated between January and March, a total of nearly three hundred patients with injection molding, have now turned on according to the city of Cologne itself, the Prosecutor's office.

According to the German society for hospital hygiene is the most serious outbreak of this pathogen in a medical facility outside of a hospital at all. Although patients on Pseudomonas aeruginosa ill always, "mostly, it relates to a single patient, rarely more than ten," said the microbiologist Alexander Friedrich from the University of Groningen. Similar to Gerd Fätkenheuer, President of the German society for infectious diseases, commented: "the circumstances and extent of the outbreak suggest that in the affected practice a hygiene problem."

where is the Bud?

The health Department is now investigating whether all of the patients infected with the same strain of bacteria and whether this really comes from practice. The pathogens may have multiplied, for example in already opened for injection solutions. "In the awareness of this infection, all of the processes in relation to the patient to be examined, personnel, and materials used before, during or after the invasive procedures were involved," says Fätkenheuer.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is found in low concentrations in drinking water. To cause an infection in the body, the germ, however, a portal of Entry such as a wound, a catheter, or the sting of a syringe. In the hospital the bacterium results in patients with a weakened immune system, often to the lungs, blister or wound inflammation. You can treat it with antibiotics, it is, of course, against some resistance.

"infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa are often difficult," says Fätkenheuer. In the worst case, multiply the bacteria throughout the bloodstream and Sepsis. "A multi-organ failure, as the deceased Patient has suffered, "is a typical complication of septic shock," so Fätkenheuer. To treat particularly difficult, the germ is, if he has developed more resistance to antibiotics. On the Cologne which broke out stem this is not true, according to the health Department. He is considered to be sensitive to several substances.