Rare blood infection surfaces in soldiers

[Kizzy]

ATLANTA, Georgia (Reuters) -- An unexpectedly high number of U.S. soldiers injured in the Middle East and Afghanistan are testing positive for a rare, hard-to-treat blood infection in military hospitals, Army doctors reported on Thursday.

A total of 102 soldiers were found to be infected with the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. The infections occurred among soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and three other sites between January 1, 2002, and August 31, 2004.

 

[migtig]

:dur: Same thing happened when Gulf War I vets returned home. They said the same thing then. And the majority of returning vets were told they shouldn't be blood donors anymore. SOSDD

 

[Kizzy]

You would think the military hospital would use the proper universal precautions in their care of patients considering this has happened in the past, Vietnam, WWII, Gulf War to name a few instances. This is caused from sloppy medical procedures, so obviously they didn’t learn from those past mistakes.

 

[Ken King]

I recall that when I was doing regular rotations to the land of sand (Egypt and Saudi)in the mid 80s that there were illnesses popping up for something like 5% of deployed forces that pulled duty over there. The view at that time was it was caused by germ carrying lice and/or sand fleas. I wonder if it is the same crap?

 

[migtig]

I recall that when I was doing regular rotations to the land of sand (Egypt and Saudi)in the mid 80s that there were illnesses popping up for something like 5% of deployed forces that pulled duty over there. The view at that time was it was caused by germ carrying lice and/or sand fleas. I wonder if it is the same crap?

According to the NGWRC, it's the same thing.