Acinetobacter
Acinetobacter is a Gram-negative bacterium that is readily found throughout the environment including drinking and surface waters, soil, sewage and various types of foods. Acinetobacter is also commonly found as a harmless coloniser on the skin of healthy people and usually poses very few risks.
Acinetobacter infections acquired in the community are very rare and most strains found outside hospitals are sensitive to antibiotics. While Acinetobacter poses few risks to healthy individuals, a few species, particularly Acinetobacter baumannii, can cause serious infections - mainly in very ill hospital patients. The most common Acinetobacter infections include pneumonia, bacteraemia (blood stream infection), wound infections, and urinary tract infections. ‘Hospital-adapted’ strains of Acinetobacter are sometimes resistant to antibiotics and are increasingly difficult to treat.
Treatment: Multi-resistant A. baumannii infections are currently treated with imipenem and an older class of drugs known as polymyxins. These, along with stricter infection-control measures, such as monitored hand washing, have lowered infection rates in some military hospitals.
MDRAB infections are difficult and costly to treat. A study at a public teaching hospital found that the mean total hospital cost of patients who acquired MDRAB was $98,575 higher than that of control patients who had identical burn severity of illness indices.