Following an epidemic of scabies within the establishment, the Montbéliard hospital is embarking on a vast bio-cleaning operation. 300 people were also put on preventive treatment.
The scabies epidemic in eastern France is taken very seriously! This skin disease caused by the sarcopte, a tiny parasite of the mite family, currently strikes a hospital in Montbéliard (Doubs). To prevent the spread of the disease, the establishment in question is now forced to plan a large bio-cleaning operation. It begins today and will end tomorrow. 300 patients and health professionals from the establishment have also just been put on preventive treatment.
The story begins on August 7, when a dozen cases are identified in the geriatric department of the Center hospitalier de Montbéliard. At the same time, there are seven new contaminations from residents of the Claude Pompidou retirement home in Belfort. A surprising fact, because according to Damien Oudot, communication manager of the establishment, “ we know that no patient left the hospital for the retirement home, but we do not yet know if a visitor could have gone from one establishment to another ”.
A vigilance unit is then immediately set up. “Upon suspicion of scabies, the hospital takes measures accordingly to avoid any risk of contamination to other services such as patients and nursing staff on site and outside,” reports the Republican East.
Thus, patients quickly receive treatment with Stroméctol, but also an ointment and a spray, according to national health recommendations. Any new admission to the geriatric ward is postponed until the following Monday. TOToday, health professionals in the region are still unable to establish the source of the infectious focus and the correlation between the two epidemics.
Characteristic signs of scabies occur only after incubation of three weeks on average. Plseveral symptoms can be indicative of common scab, especially if a epidemic declared itself in a community.
The disease is manifested by itching and skin lesions. But, at lhe affected children under two years of age have specific signs: commotion, crying and disturbed sleep; pearly vesicles (often superinfected) on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, in the armpits, navel, buttocks, even arms, chest, thighs and head; or even scabious nodules under the armpits.
Often wrongly associated with poor hygiene, more and more cases of scabies are being diagnosed in France. According to an opinion from the High Council of Public Health, the incidence of the disease has increased by 10% since 2002.
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