Montgomery, NIH Near ‘Superbug’ Agreement
Pact would require notification of the public.
After a fatal “superbug” swept through the National Institutes of Health earlier this year unbeknownst to the public, state and county officials are on the verge of an agreement that will require NIH to report outbreaks of similar hospital-acquired infections, according to Montgomery County's health officer. Last fall, a drug-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae spread throughout NIH’s research hospital, infecting 18 people. Twelve of those cases were fatal; seven attributed to Klebsiella. Federal and state guidelines did not require NIH to report the outbreak, and NIH officials said they chose not to alert the public earlier because healthy people outside the hospital were at little to no risk, The Washington Post reported. …
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