Testing conducted last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed four drug-resistant cases of H1N1 influenza at the Duke University Medical Center.
CDC tests, requested by infectious disease specialists at the Medical Center, found that four patients in an isolated unit of the hospital had cases of the virus that were resistant to the drug Tamiflu. According to a Medical Center news release Friday, the CDC is working with officials from the North Carolina Division of Public Health, the Durham County Health Department and the Duke Division of Infectious Diseases to research these cases.
“Our extensive investigation thus far has revealed that appropriate infection control procedures have been diligently practiced on this isolated unit, and throughout the hospital,” Dr. Daniel Sexton, professor of medicine and director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, said in Friday’s release. “We have experienced no illness among employees taking care of these patients in the affected unit over this period of time.”
These cases are considered the largest “cluster” of drug-resistant swine flu found in the United States so far, indicating that the virus has mutated, the (Durham) Herald-Sun reported Saturday. The drug-resistant cases are rare but are not more severe than other H1N1 cases, the CDC reported. Two women and an adult man died at the Hospital after their samples showed that they were drug-resistant cases.
“All of them had pretty serious underlying medical conditions, including some immunosuppression, and so we are unable to say that their deaths were caused by influenza,’’ Dr. Megan Davies, an CDC epidemiologist for North Carolina, said at a press conference Saturday.
More than 50 drug-resistant cases of swine flu have been reported in the world since last spring, the Associated Press reported Friday, including another cluster of five cases last week in the United Kingdom.