Florida Stops Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae

Florida Stops Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae

Florida Stops Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 09/18/2012 03:05 PM EDT

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Florida Stops Outbreak of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae

In early 2011, CDC sent a team of disease detectives to Florida to assist the state and a healthcare facility stop an outbreak of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, deadly germs that cause healthcare-associated infections. CRE are a concern in long-term acute care hospitals, where patients who need to be on life-support for long periods of time receive care. They are resistant to almost all drugs, difficult to treat, and are associated with high death rates (up to 40% in some studies).   Read about Florida’s success in stopping the spread of this public health threat.

If you want even more details about this outbreak, read the scientific paper in the October issue of the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

For more information about how your facility can stop CRE, please see CDC’s CRE toolkit: http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/organisms/cre/index.html