Dive Brief:
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reports that it has had four cases of the "superbug," CRE. One of the patients has died, but Cedars-Sinai says this was related to underlying medical conditions, not the infection.
- The hospital is sending free home-test kits to 67 patients who had procedures at the hospital to diagnose pancreatic and bile-duct issues.
- Cedars said it halted such procedures after the news of the UCLA outbreak broke. It says the infections may have been spread by use of the Olympus duodenoscope during procedures done between August 2014 and February 2015.
Dive Insight:
"It's highly likely many hospitals around the country have had outbreaks, and they haven't been able to connect the dots until this problem was disclosed at UCLA," Lisa McGiffert, director of the Safe Patient Project at Consumers Union, told the LA Times.
FDA officials say they are working to fast-track label updates for duodenoscopes to show new warnings and more stringent instructions for disinfecting them, due to their apparent role in the spread of the drug-resistant infection.