A Johns Hopkins University study of adult patients admitted to its hospital showed that patients who resided in nursing homes at any time within the last six months were far more likely than other adult patients to carry or be infected with a drug-resistant superbug. The study, conducted over a four-month period in 2006, was intended to grasp the extent of one of the lesser known hospital superbugs, multi drug-resistant Acinetobacter (MDR-ACIN), and control its spread among the hospital’s most vulnerable adult patients.
More than 1,600 were screened within 24 hours of admission to any one of five intensive care units where previous infections had been recorded. Results showed that patients who had been in nursing homes were 12 times more likely than other patients to be carriers of the bacterium. Rates were even higher, 22 times, among those patients who were wheelchair or bed-bound because their legs were paralyzed.
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