The Surprising Role of Hospitals in Outbreaks

A major outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome infecting at least 108 people in South Korea was caused, in part, by the country’s health system. Patients in South Korea often compare a number of hospitals when seeking a diagnosis, as did the MERS “patient zero,” who visited four hospitals over nine days. Emergency rooms also cram beds and seats close together, allowing viral illnesses like MERS to spread rapidly. But this isn’t the first disease to go viral thanks to hospitals themselves:

SARS Poor infection control seeded the deadly 2003 global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Hong Kong, where nearly 100 patients and staff were infected by one patient at the city’s Prince of Wales Hospital. Inadequate health care procedures were also behind a SARS outbreak that claimed 44 lives in Toronto in 2003.

‘Superbug’ cre Separate outbreaks in 2012 of the deadly carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in Dutch and German hospitals were linked to difficult-to-clean medical scopes that transferred bacteria among patients and infected dozens. The scope’s manufacturer later warned European hospitals about the device but did not inform U.S. regulators, leading to multiple cases in Los Angeles medical centers in 2015.

Hepatitis C virus Egypt has the largest proportion of HCV infection in the world, with at least 1 in 10 Egyptians ages 15–59 infected with the blood-borne virus; 80% of new infections occur in Egypt’s hospitals and clinics owing to inadequate sterilization of equipment and unsafe medical and dental practices.

HIGH PRIORITIES

German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks to U.S. President Barack Obama outside the Schloss Elmau hotel on June 8, during the G-7 summit in southern Germany. This was the second time that the annual summit was held as the G-7 rather than the G-8; Russia is still suspended for its annexation of Crimea. Both leaders insisted that economic sanctions on Russia would remain in place. Obama warned of “additional steps” if the conflict in eastern Ukraine escalated. Climate change also dominated the agenda, with G-7 leaders calling for a 2050 target of reducing fossil-fuel emissions by 40% to 70% globally, compared with 2010 levels.

DATA

THE GLOBAL SPACE RACE

The European Space Agency’s incoming director general, Jan Wörner, wants to build a village on the moon. Other nations have similarly out-of-this-world ambitions:

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Japan

Launched a probe to mine an asteroid in 2018

China

Plans to build a huge solar-power station in space

Russia

Hopes to send probes to Jupiter, Mars and Venus

India

Is exploring sending a rocket to Mercury

Israel

Is launching tiny satellites to find missing persons