Introduction to Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections
Pseudomonas infections are any of the health ailments associated with the causal agent Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that may infect the whole body. Most of the patients who fall ill with these diseases are the ones with the destroyed integrity of a physical barrier to infection (such as the skin and mucous membranes) or with immuno-compromised body defense mechanisms, for instance, pseudomonas infections affect very ill persons and the juvenile ages.
This is a rod shaped gram-negative bacterium that belongs to the family Pseudomonadaceae and usually, it is found in the entirety of man’s surroundings, that is, in the soil, water, plants, and animals (Belinda, 2006). Most of the serrovars of Pseudomonas isolated from clinical cases produce a characteristic blue-green pigment called pyocyanin and they are identified by a unique sweet odor (Samer, 2008).
These bacilli organisms are often feared because they cause severe hospital-acquired infections especially in immunocompromised hosts, and are usually resistant to antibiotics making therapy choices complicating. These organisms are referred to as opportunistic pathogens since they do not ordinarily cause disease by themselves but proliferate freely in persons with weakened immune systems due to illness or extensive medication (Belinda, 2006).
Patients with AIDS and those who have been hospitalized for a long duration of time have an amplified risk of attaining serious pseudomonas infections, because of lowered immunity to diseases and the fact that P. aeruginosa is often well established in hospitals thus becoming a nosocomial disease due to resistant development to antibiotics. Pathogens are isolated from the patients who have been hospitalized more than 1 week, this organism is the most common one and it has become the usual etiology of nosocomial diseases such as pneumonia, upper and lower urinary tract infections (UTIs), and bacteremia that is usually life-threatening on other complications (Samer, 2008).
Health threats posed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections
The Pseudomonas bacterium has achieved the second position in the frequency on which micro-organisms cause nosocomial pneumonia and currently it is the most common etiology associated with intensive care unit (ICU) pneumonia. In real clinical case characteristics, most of the Pseudomonas bacteria are resistant to certain commonly used antibiotics, which makes them difficult to treat. This brings about the idea that these organisms can develop a way of drug resistance hence it is usually found in most hospital facility environment (Scott, 2003).
Another factor that is exhibited is that these Pseudomonas infections secure more chances of spreading within hospitals by health care human resources, medical apparatus, drainage areas such as sinks, antiseptic solutions, and even the foodstuffs offered in these health facilities causing a lot of complications in many of the hospitals because they seem to lead to very high mortalities in the people who are so ill and also they have become resistant to the common antibiotics, a factor which has attributed them to nosocomial infections hence difficult to treat (Samer, 2008).
P. aeruginosa organism can infect people through any of the body parts and this has been attributed to varied characteristics which tend to enhance these developments of resistance. Some of these factors include the ability of the Pseudomonas to fix to cells, its ability to produce and proliferate in an environment with low nutritional supply, well-developed resistance to many commonly used antibiotics on treatment, its ability to produce proteinic enzymes that destroys the tissue-cell matrix and laying an outer coat for protecting it against different kinds of attack (Belinda, 2006).
This has brought a need for a lot of caution to be put on many of the Health care facilities as a form of preventing the development of Pseudomonas, as it poses a very high degree of health hazards to most of the hospitalized patients and low immunity persons. In order to achieve this, clinical officers and their supporting staff counterparts have been instructed (on some hygienic and preventive measures) to curb the proliferation of these nosocomial infections caused by Pseudomonas organisms.
The recovery of this gram-negative bacterium in sputum of patients was later found to be associated with bad functional results and with a good account of previous involvement in smoking in a study whicthatessed about 188 hospitalized Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients (Patrice Wendling, 2006). It was clearly shown on experiments done and published in one of his papers that Pseudomonas aeruginosa was identified in about 5.5% of sputum of 118 patients who were sick from acute exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease by way of concomitant pneumonia (Intern. Med. J. 2005; 35:661-7) and out of these about 23% of cultures produced from sthe putum of these people showed positive results for Pseudomonas aeruginosa organisms.
From ,this we can see that this organism is highly associated with a lot of man’s chronic infections, especially those that may lead to the suppression of immunity, for instance, cancer and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Robert, 2003). This shows that there will be threat to human life from the Pseudomonas diseases, as this modern error (where the cases of chronic infections such as those discussed above) have been rising hence posing a great human health danger.
Again the Pseudomonas aeruginosa organism has been for a long time a well-known etiology of nosocomial infections among infants as this has been demonstrated in hospital’s neonatal intensive care units. The neonatesshows conjunctivitis and endophthalmitis, various forms of localized or generalized skin lesions, cardiovascular diseases and infections, nervous signs due to meningitis, pneumonia ,and diarrhea associated with necrotizing enterocolitis asa clinical syndrome of the disease in infants. Most of the common origin of this opportunistic pathogen is environmental sources for example sinks and respiratory-therapy apparatus such as anesthetic machines are the most frequently described reservoirs of P. aeruginosa, despite the occasional reservoir by the health care workers (Marc et al. 2009).
This therefore complicates the issue of control in this persistent organism as young persons have very low immunity and the chances of them being infected are high, a thing that can cause a threat to their life bearing in mind that these organisms have developed resistance to the commonly used antibiotics in hospitals. The disease caused by the organism is hardly diagnosed as it usually expresses itself in the forms which are sub-clinical until the person’s immunity is depressed, and the clinical syndrome can be manifested.
The Pseudomonas aeruginosa organism occurs in large volumes in our surrounding environment especially in the hospitals. It has health hazardous effects on the human life in many ways. This can easily be manifested in the manner in which the infection spreads between the people in health care facilities, bearing in mind that these people are either with lowered immunity or are the ones who attends to the patients.
Regarding these characteristics, it can also lead to skin and soft tissue diseases in health persons. This is seen as development of Pseudomonas skin rash following the skin exposure to the bacterium in infected shared facilities such as hot tubs, cold water parks, whirlpools or spas (for example, a disease called Pseudomonas or “hot tub” folliculitis, which is usually a differential diagnosis to chickenpox). This may lead to a severe skin infection to these patients especially those patients with P. aeruginosa bacterium and has seen the common cause of burn wound infections in hospitalized ailing people.
Treatment of Pseudomonas organisms
The major treatments of this bacterium lie in the preventive measures, and isolation of affected people and attendance by specific nurses in acts of controlling the infection. Great hygienic measures are advocated in hospitals, for instance, before start of shift health care workers should wash their hands with a preparation containing four percent chlorhexidine gluconate for more than two minutes.
Development of adjunctive therapies based on interchange target sites for instance quorum sensing, type III secretion and LPS must be considered (Marc et al., 2009). It is definitive that use of broad spectrum antibiotics and avoidance of moist conditions in the hospital environment should be encouraged as importance tools of good hygienic practice and infection control measure (Scott, 2003). In addition to this, there is need to change several care practices such as not permitting cosmetic nail treatments, not using water baths to heat formula and minimizing the number of supplies kept by the patients’ bedsides.
A combination of many drugs may be used for chemotherapy, with ceftazidime (Ceftaz, Fortraz, and Tazicef), ciprofloxacin (Cipro), imipenem (Primaxin), gentamicin (Garamycin), Tobramycin (Nebcin), Ticarcillin-clavulanate (Timentin), or Piperacillin-tazobactam (Zosyn). Most antibiotics are administered through the mouth or into the superficial veins for a period of two to six weeks. Occasionally broad spectrum antibiotics for example fluoroquinolones can be used in its treatment, as majority of P. aeruginosa isolates continue susceptibility to this drug (Belinda, 2006).
References
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