ATLANTA - The government issued new guidelines for doctors and hospitals Tuesday to slow the growth of so-called supergerms - powerful bacteria that develop resistance to overused antibiotics. <br>
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The tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are aimed at reducing the estimated 1 million hospital infections each year in the United States, blamed on drug-resistant germs, tens of thousands of them fatal. <br>
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They appear in a 12-step tip sheet that the CDC and other medical groups will distribute to health care providers nationwide, including doctor's offices, hospitals and nursing homes. <br>
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Among the recommendations: Providers should use catheters only when necessary and vaccinate more patients against the flu. The idea is to prevent unnecessary infections, which allow germs to become resistant to antibiotics. <br>
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``The bugs are developing resistance faster than we can develop the drugs to combat them,'' said Dr. Julie Gerberding, a CDC infectious disease expert. <br>
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Health officials concede that antibiotic resistance is not a problem that can be stamped out. As long as doctors use drugs to fight bacteria, the survivor germs will morph into more powerful strains. <br>
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Some bacteria even develop resistance to more than one drug - and those germs can often spread quickly in crowded hospitals, said Dr. Barry Farr of the University of Virginia Health System. <br>
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``These are organisms that are spreading from patient to patient to patient,'' he said. <br>
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One of the CDC steps urges health care providers to be extremely cautious with vancomycin, a last-resort drug used to treat a wide range of staph infections, including toxic shock syndrome and pneumonia. <br>
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About half of all staph germs in hospitals are resistant to meticillin, the standard drug used to treat it, and the bug is increasingly becoming resistant to vancomycin. <br>
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Health officials say too many staph infections are incorrectly diagnosed as resistant to meticillin, leading to unnecessary use of vancomycin. The CDC wants doctors to take careful germ cultures to avoid prescribing the wrong antibiotic. <br>
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Health care providers also should avoid taking a ``belt-and-suspender'' approach to drugs, prescribing two to fight the same germ when just one will do, said Dr. Robert Weinstein of Cook County Hospital in Chicago. <br>
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Overuse of catheters, the thin tubes inserted into body cavities to let fluids pass in and out, is a leading preventable cause of hospital infections. <br>
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``Sometimes they're left in for days longer than necessary, for convenience, or just in case,'' Gerberding said. ``The problem is that the just-in-case may result in a life-threatening infection.'' <br>
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The CDC sheet includes lots of information health care providers have already heard, like the importance of proper handwashing and keeping doctors and nurses home when they're sick. <br>
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But providers are bombarded with information on prevention techniques, and the CDC hopes the guidelines will provide a quick reference for simple steps to stop infections. <br>
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``This is a major threat to patient safety today,'' Gerberding said. ``In nursing homes, dialysis centers, rehab facilities, everywhere, this is a growing crisis for patients."
