Scabies outbreak at CRMC

Scabies outbreak at CRMC

 

By Buddy Pearson Herald Citizen

 

COOKEVILLE — While a case of scabies may be somewhat common, an outbreak among staff at a hospital usually is pretty rare. At least at Cookeville Regional Medical Center it had been.

CRMC, however, has been dealing with its first known outbreak of scabies among hospital personnel as 44 employees with symptoms of scabies have been treated and another 49 employees who did not have symptoms were also treated as a precaution.

A contagious skin infection caused by mites which burrow under the host’s skin, causing intense allergic itching, scabies usually only spreads through direct skin-to-skin contact. But a patient who was first seen on Dec. 30 for a skin rash later returned to CRMC on Jan. 6 and was diagnosed with crusted scabies, creating an outbreak among employees.

“The patient had a very bad skin rash that was not typical of scabies. He was discharged to a nursing home and then was readmitted on Jan. 6,” explained Dr. Mark Pierce, CRMC Infectious Disease Specialist. “When I saw him on the (Jan.) 7th we got the results of his biopsy and it was crusted scabies.”

Crusted scabies is much more infectious and occurs more in the elderly who have other issues that make them less able to respond to normal scabies like a healthy person would. The patient in question had a bad skin rash teaming with mites creating an infectious environment.

“The people who were exposed to that patient on the previous admission came down with scabies,” Dr. Pierce said.

“In this case, this patient is much more infectious than normal. So, places where he sat or his bed clothes, you could get scabies from that.”

Hospital personnel with scabies symptoms were treated with the medication Permethrin and sent home for at least 24 hours.

“As soon as we discovered it we implemented isolation precautions and implemented our infectious control plan,” said Mehlan Finley, CRMC Director of Marketing and Public Relations.

“Only hospital staff have been treated. No patients at CRMC have been infected.”

While the outbreak is not life-threatening, it was this one isolated case of crusted scabies which has caused somewhat of a stir at CRMC.

“It’s a nuissance disease. It’s like head lice,” Dr. Pierce explained.

“A normal host will get a small rash that itches very badly. Just because you contacted this patient that had crusted scabies you aren’t going to get that kind of scabies because you are a normal host. People get very concerned and upset about it because they don’t want to have it.”

Pierce also said that there were four institutions in the state of Tennessee which had a scabies outbreak last year.

“It’s not terribly common but not terribly uncommon. This outbreak was so bad because crusted scabies is so infectious. It has not spread to patients. It has just spread to hospital personnel.”

Read more: Herald Citizen - Scabies outbreak at CRMC