After a “superbug” infected two patients and was linked to potentially exposing several others at UCLA Medical Center last month, another Los Angeles hospital has said that four patients have become infected.
The Associated Press noted that the latest cases of infected parties comes out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, health officials said Wednesday.
As previously reported, the germs, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, have infected patients who have undergone endoscopic procedures with a duodenoscope.
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a safety alert for the instruments, informing patients of the risk. However, it has not pulled the scopes off the market saying that they are needed for "beneficial and often life-saving" procedures. The flexible tubes are used to go down the throat and stomach to the top of the small intestine to drain fluids from blocked pancreatic and bile ducts.
Both Cedars-Sinai and UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center have begun using new disinfection procedures for such scopes, which are manufactured by Olympus Corp.