Rare Bacteria Appears To Have Killed SF Researcher
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Health officials are trying to determine how a rare strain of bacteria infected and apparently led to the death of a researcher at a Veteran's Affairs infectious diseases lab in San Francisco.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that the 25-year-old man, who has not been named, died Saturday morning shortly after asking friends to take him to a hospital.
California Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokesman Peter Melton told the newspaper that the man had been handling a bacteria linked to bloodstream infections at the VA Hospital's Northern California Institute for Research and Education.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health was trying to locate everyone who had close contact with the researcher during the time he was infected.
City health spokeswoman Eileen Shields says friends and people who worked with man, as well as about 60 health workers involved in his treatment, were being given antibiotics.
Information from: San Jose Mercury News, http://www.sjmercury.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
