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| Staph outbreak hits N.C. prisons |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/02/2004 |
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North Carolina's corrections department has suspended all inmate transfers between prisons two weeks ago to try to halt an outbreak of a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection in three prisons. Two inmates with confirmed staph infections and 17 others with suspected infections were isolated July 22 at the Lanesboro Correctional Institute in Polkton, said Pam Walker, N.C. Department of Correction's public information officer. The outbreak in three Anson County prisons is the first for the state's prison system, said Dr. Paula Smith, director of the department's health division. Similar outbreaks have occurred at prisons across the country, including one in Mississippi in 2000 that prompted a warning from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a fatality last year in an Ohio prison. The first of the two North Carolina cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a particularly fierce form of staph infection, was diagnosed July 16; the second was diagnosed July 21. This form of bacteria is resistant to drugs and can cause a variety of illnesses, including skin and bone infections, pneumonia and life-threatening bloodstream infections, according to the CDC. Six men from Brown Creek Correctional Institute, eight from Lanesboro Correctional Institute and five from Anson Correctional Center are being treated with antibiotics similar to Cipro because the bacterium is resistant to penicillin-type drugs. The three prisons are clustered together in Polkton, about 45 miles southeast of Charlotte, and share medical staff that travel among the facilities, Walker said. The three prisons hold a combined 2,024 men. |
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