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Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

They can write a whole article about how bad it is, but they can't even say what the pathology is?

Does this cause colds or Ebola? I know Ebola is viral. I'm talking about symptoms

It's an opportunistic pathogen that mainly spreads in hospitals among people who are immunocompromised or otherwise ill. Symptoms vary wildly, because it can infect different organs and tissues, and can include pneumonia and meningitis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acinetobacter_baumannii

Wouldn't these restrictions prevent a global pandemic and thus refute the headline?

No one mentioned pandemic. It's a health threat--if this thing gets into a hospital its very, very hard to get rid of. Most people prefer their hospitals as sterile as possible.

Its also something that can become a damocles swoard. Like its living in your intestines harmlessly, but if you have a ulcer or somebody in your house gets with a cut near your toilet - exitus.

I have wrongly assumed that a global health threat is equivalent to a pandemic.

> prefer their hospitals as sterile

Ah well, except for the sinks, which are breeding ground for superbugs: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10469867/

In a hospital setting, superbug x-contamination is often fatal: https://apnews.com/article/mexico-contaminated-hospital-supp...

A global health threat doesn't have to be a pandemic affecting otherwise healthy people to be a global health threat. In this case, the threat would presumably be that the same bacteria winds up in health care facilities elsewhere.

The "whole article" includes:

"A. baumannii can cause infections in blood, lungs, urinary tracts, and wounds. It typically causes these in healthcare settings, such as hospitals. Owing to its ability to resist antibiotic treatment, it has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a critical priority antibiotic-resistant pathogen."

It's a bacteria, so it causes an infection.

Your body should be able to get rid of it by itself, but if it can't, the infection will grow and be fatal.

It's not just in Malaysia, but typically these cases are rare so it being widespread is worrisome. We have MRSA in North-America, but hospital processes eliminate most of the spread of bacteria through thorough cleaning.

It's not much to worry about if you're in a first-world country, but this may cause a lot of deaths in these countries, and force them to spend more on cleaning procedures.

> but hospital processes eliminate most of the spread of bacteria through thorough cleaning.

Not really. I worked at a hospital over a decade ago and I during an onboarding training session we were told that 1/8 patients will receive an infection as a result of their hospital stay.

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