A teenager who tried to pierce his lip with a needle from a first-aid kit wound up with a staph infection that nearly killed him, according to Kansas City-area doctors.

Young Zeke Wheeler is recovering at Children’s Mercy Hospital after enduring surgeries on his knees and hips to remove the drug-resistant infection called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus virus.

The 15-year-old high school freshman still must undergo heart surgery, more hospitalization and a long course of antibiotics.

The boy’s father — John Wheeler — says that the boy was at home ill with the flu and bronchitis last month, and, apparently bored, tried to pierce his lower lip.

A week later the boy presented at an emergency room with fever, where he was diagnosed with a viral infection. Not until he was at Children’s Mercy was he found to have MRSA, doctors say.

According to Dr. Robyn Livingston, director of Infection Control at Children’s Mercy Hospital, “if MRSA gets into the blood stream, you’re talking about infection on the heart, pneumonia, into the bone that may require surgical intervention.”

Every part of Wheeler’s body is now affected, the doctor adds.

– by The Editors

Teenage body piercing — stupid and potentially deadly.

Posted: May 9th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity, MRSA.
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The U.S. government has offered to assist China in its battle against a viral infection that has killed 34 children, and afflicted thousands of others.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is making a trip to Beijing next week and plans to discuss health issues with Chinese officials, with the outbreaks of “hand, foot, and mouth disease expected to feature prominently,” U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, Susan Stevenson, says.

The scope of infections brings to mind the SARS epidemic of 2003, when China was criticized internationally for trying to conceal the emergence of the disease. American health experts have previously helped study and control infectious diseases like SARS in China.

The most recent deaths happened in the central province of Anhui, where 22 children have died of hand, foot, and mouth disease, the provincial health bureau said on its Internet site.

The government said serious cases, however, were on the decline in Fuyang city, the site of the most infections and where the first wave of outbreaks was reported.

As of late Thursday, the number of reported cases countrywide jumped to 24,932, the official Xinhua News Agency said — up 25 percent from 19,962 a day earlier.  New cases have popped up from Guangdong province in the south to Jilin province in the northeast, along with major cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

– by The Editors

A positive staining of EV71.

Posted: May 9th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity, SARS.
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A new study shows that some anti-depressant drugs can boost the immune systems of those infected with HIV, according to a new report in the learned journal Biological Psychiatry.

In this study, doctors recruited both depressed and non-depressed HIV-infected women and studied the effects of three drugs, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), a substance P antagonist, and a glucocorticoid antagonist, on their NK cell activity.  NK cells are a major component of the body’s immune response to infection. These drugs were selected because, as the authors state, each “affects underlying regulatory systems that have been extensively investigated in both stress and depression research as well as immune and viral research.”

The scientists found that the SSRI citalopram, and the substance P antagonist CP 96,345, “increased NK cell activity.”

Other points of note:

* There has been growing evidence that the compromise of immune function associated with depression influences the outcomes of infectious diseases and cancer.
* Antidepressant treatments are beginning to be studied for their potential positive effects on immune function.

According to Dr. Dwight Evans, an author of the article, “The present findings provide evidence that natural killer cell function in HIV infection may be enhanced by selective serotonin reuptake inhibition and also by substance P antagonism in both depressed and non-depressed individuals.”

– by the Editors

An HIV virion. Image Courtesy: National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Posted: May 8th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, HIV, Impaired Immunity.
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Computer keyboards with “cleanliness sensors and germ-resistant coatings” are being embraced in the U.K.  The idea — stop the spread of MRSA, other superbugs, and make hospitals cleaner and safer, overall, according to doctors.

The National Health Service is this week introducing 7,500 infection-resistant keyboards in hospitals across the U.K.

Developed by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), the rollout of germ-resistant keyboards is part of a pilot program supported by Connecting for Health, the Department of Health’s technology agency.

The keyboards are completely flat, enabling them to avoid collecting debris that often harbors infections. They are also covered with a hypoallergenic material which is resistant to bug growth.

The keyboards feature a warning light to alert users when they haven’t been cleaned properly. The light only goes out once sensors on the device are satisfied it has been sufficiently cleaned, experts tell Infection Protection.

Microbiologists have found the new technology can lead to a 70 percent reduction in bacteria levels on keyboards, if they are properly cleaned every day.

The warning-light system has also been claimed to increase hand-washing by 10 percent.

Maureen Baker, Connecting for Health’s national clinical lead for patient safety, said the technology represents “a significant step forward” in stopping hospital-acquired infections, like MRSA.

– by the Editors

Posted: May 8th, 2008 under Clostridium difficile, Developing Diseases, Diseases, MRSA.
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A tick expert reckons that a combination of unexpected ecological factors are likely to make 2008 “a big year for ticks,” and he recommends taking appropriate precautions to reduce the chances of being bitten.

Posted: May 7th, 2008 under Diseases, Lyme disease.
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Patients who have been infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) have an “increased risk” of developing non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL), according to a report in the International Journal of Cancer.

Earlier studies demonstrated the association between HCV infection and the risk of NHL in Southern European populations, but not in Northern European or North American populations, the authors say.

Researchers, including Dr. Claudia Schollkopf from Stats Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, probed HCV infection and the risks of NHL overall, specific NHL subtypes, and Hodgkins lymphoma in a large population-based study of Danish and Swedish patients.

Scientists say HCV infection is associated with an increase in the overall risk of NHL, and with a significant, 2.4-fold increase in the risk of B-cell lymphomas, as well as a 5.2-fold increased risk of lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma.

There was no association between HCV infection and mantle cell lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma, T-cell lymphoma, or Hodgkins lymphoma, the researchers found.

“We observed some evidence for a role of HCV in the etiology of lymphoma,” the investigators say. “However, the magnitude of association was modest.”

Further studies are needed to focus on the biological mechanisms of HCV-related lymphomagenesis and contributing host and viral factors, according to the scientists.

– by the Editors

Risk of cancer increases with hepatitis C infection.

Posted: May 7th, 2008 under Diseases, Hepatitis.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH0fcT41I-c

www.GideonOnline.com

Posted: May 7th, 2008 under Audio-Video Reports, Continuing Education.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9gBdfL6Zqk

Posted: May 7th, 2008 under Audio-Video Reports, Developing Diseases.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFezoKFNg9M

Posted: May 7th, 2008 under Audio-Video Reports.
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A scientist at the University of Leicester has discovered how a blood protein — linked to defense against meningitis - plays a much more vital role than previously understood by medicine in the body’s immune defense system.

The new science is helping to advance medical understanding of how the body defends against disease and heals itself after an illness. The research was first published in the Journal of Immunology.

The research reveals that the same protein, Properdin, can also harm internal organs under certain circumstances. Lack of the protein in the human body has previously been linked to susceptibility to viral meningitis, a potentially crippling affliction.

The new findings by Dr. Cordula Stover, of the department of infection, immunity, and inflammation at the University of Leicester, assign previously unappreciated importance to this protein of the immune defence.

“Properdin deficiency in families, though rare, predisposes people to develop meningococcal meningitis, usually with poor outcome of the infection,” says Dr. Stover. “I hypothesized that the importance of Properdin extends beyond this particular infectious disease, and that indeed it is an important player in health generally, and that its importance becomes apparent in conditions involving both acute and chronic states of inflammation.”

Now two of Dr. Stover’s papers demonstrate that Properdin plays a significant role in the survival of conditions relating to surgical perforation of the bowels and activation of the immune system by wall components of bacteria.

– by the Editors

Blood protein sample. Source: Wired.

Posted: May 6th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity.
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