Antibiotic-resistant MRSA hospital bacteria spreading faster than ever

Epidemic in Helsinki spreading to homes for elderly and outpatient care

print this

The antibiotic-resistant bacteria MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is spreading at a record rate in Finland this year. More than 1,000 new infections have been reported. Soon there will be as many as there were all last year combined.
     Most leading infectious disease specialists interviewed by Helsingin Sanomat felt that action is needed now, if the problem is to be brought under control.
     “One can say that we are at a tipping point”, says Petri Ruutu, head of the Department of Infectious Disease and Epidemiology at the National Public Health Institute (KTL).
     The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has called a meeting of administrators of university hospitals to think of ways to stop the bacteria from spreading.
     
The most difficult situation with MRSA in the large hospital districts has been in Pirkanmaa, which includes the city of Tampere.
     This year the situation got worse in the Helsinki region as well, were MRSA outbreaks increased at the beginning of the year.
     A campaign launched after an epidemic at Helsinki’s Töölö Hospital four years ago is no longer having any effect.
      Ville Valtonen, head physician of the Clinic of Infectious Diseases at the Helsinki University Central Hospital, says that the nature of the epidemic has changed. “It has moved from hospitals to long-term care and out-patient care”.
      For instance, in homes for the elderly, the bacteria can spread without warning, because infections are not examined as closely as they are in hospitals.
     There are medications that can be used against MRSA, but they are more expensive and less effective than normal antibiotics. They also have more serious side effects.
      In Pirkanmaa, MRSA is calculated to have cost about EUR 2.5 million in higher costs. An MRSA infection patient spends an average one week longer in hospital than a patient without the infection, and even a symptom-free carrier is often given a private room and a designated nurse.
     
The most important weapon in fighting the infections is to have sufficient personnel and that they should be meticulous in matters of hygiene.
     At the National Public Health Institute, head physician Jaana Vuopio-Varkila suggests that one reason for the resurgence may be that once the situation was brought under control, people became complacent and less careful.
     Architecture also affects the spread of the bacteria. Valtonen feels that hospitals should be built with a sufficient number of private rooms with their own toilets. “Structures are cheap, infections are expensive.”
     
The Suursuo Hospital in Helsinki has Finland’s oldest unit dedicated to treating patients infected with MRSA. The unit is eight years old, and ward nurse Marjo Savolainen says that there is plenty of unnecessary fear related with the bacteria.
      “One of our old men was recently turned down for a place in a home for the elderly just because of MRSA”, she says.
     KTL’s guidelines are that a carrier of MRSA can live a normal life outside a hospital.
     
MRSA is not the only antibiotic-resistant bacteria that could affect hospitals.
      For instance, an intestinal bacteria strain is spreading in Greece, which, for all practical purposes, will not respond to any antibiotic.
     “There is fear that it might come here. Finns travel to Greece very much”, Valtonen points out.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Serious hospital infections continue to spread in Finland; situation better than in many other European countries (14.10.2002)
  Finnish hospitals deficient in personnel specialized in infection prevention (5.11.2007)
  Record number of serious infections from hospital bacteria last year (17.1.2005)
  Helsinki hospitals hit by MRSA epidemic (24.8.2004)

Links:
  Wikipedia: MRSA

Helsingin Sanomat