Bacterial infections on top of swine flu ...

are now seen as a major culprit in the deaths of otherwise healthy people with the new influenza virus.

The finding, reported this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alters experts’ view of swine flu and offers an additional line of defense against a potentially lethal infection.

The emerging role of bacterial infections in the deaths of individuals with swine flu suggests that in addition to a swine flu vaccination, many people would benefit from the pneumococcal vaccine to stop the bacteria responsible for pneumonia, sinusitis, meningitis, bronchitis and other illnesses.
At the start of the pandemic, it appeared as though few patients with what’s officially known as H1N1 suffered from secondary bacterial infections that can lead to more serious illness, unlike what happens with the regular seasonal flu.

Now, after reviewing data from 77 deaths, including the cases in Buffalo that involved bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics, it’s clearer that bacterial infections may be a significant swine flu complication.

Bacterial co-infections with one of four different bacteria were present in 22 cases, or 29 percent. The cause of nearly half of the cases was a strain known as pneumococcus, which causes ear and sinus infections, pneumonia and meningitis.

Five of seven infections caused by another bacterium, staphylococcus, involved methicillin-resistant strains, or MRSA.

The CDC warned that the results come from a small sample and may not represent the actual portion of patients with bacterial infections.

But officials also noted that 16 of the 22 patients with bacterial co-infections had conditions that made them candidates for the pneumococcal vaccine, yet only about 16 percent of people ages 18 to 49 who should be inoculated get the vaccine.
MRSA first appeared as a problem among hospital patients, but in recent years a variety has spread through communities across the nation, usually causing mild skin infections. An estimated 30 percent of people have staphylococcus living normally in their noses, and about 1 percent of those are the antibiotic-resistant MRSA.

These bugs can become deadly when they get into the bloodstream through wounds or if a virus damages the respiratory tract leading to the lungs.
In the United States, the regular seasonal flu caused by a different virus than swine flu leads to about 36,000 deaths each year from complications, according to the CDC. More than 90 percent of the deaths occur in people older than 65.