meghan, you are totally entitled to your opinion- i guess some people aren't willing to take that risk, or risk others. i would feel SO guilty if i knew someone caught cepacia from me, especially a friend! I know some people who definitely know they caught cepacia from the hospital also, i.e., another patient. Some have never been hospitalized before, go in for something routine after a life of being healthy, and come out colonized with b. cepacia.
ALSO, I think I mentioned in a previous post that although cepacia is in the environment in an organic form, everyone seems to think it is highly doubtful that this is the form that colonizes CF patients. Psuedo is much more likely to do this- (maybe why more people have pseudo). A patient with CF who has never been hospitalized or in clinic (if that existed) i think would have a 0% chance of catching cepacia. It only makes sense really, because the way that cepacia exists in a HUMAN, as opposed to the form it might take in farm chemicals, or rotten onions, would be more easily transacted to another human. It is similar to the whole bird flu scare and how they think it is much less likely that the virus jump from bird - to - human, but once it got to the human it could spread very quickly. It is because the agent is different. This is the case for many viruses, bacterias, diseases.
As far as someone asking about cepacia Dolosa- jane it was you i think- I know we go to the same hospital and you may not know but all of the Dolosa patients are seen in an entirely different wing of the hospital. Once a doctor goes over there to see thier dolosa patient, they are not allowed to return to the regular clinic. For example, on wednesdays my doctor sees regular patients in the morning, and then her dolosa patients in the afternoon. So after 12pm, once she goes there, she cant come back. They are also not admitting dolosa patients over at the new Brigham program and wont be, and they are in a separate wing in the hospital when admitted.
Dolosa was a publicized outbreak at Children's in boston about a year or two ago, and it was pretty bad. A couple people died actually, but there are patients with it now who are doing fine, just like regular cepacia. It shouldn't be seen as a "leper" type situation either, but the precautions were necessary after the acute outbreak.
Caitlin
22 w/ CF, b. cepacia
