Infections

The number of severe infections by a "superbug," known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is at least twice as high as researchers previously believed, and the bacterium now kills more Americans than AIDS, researchers reported today. The antibiotic-resistant infections, commonly called MRSA, were once confined to a few hospitals, but a new study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2005 they made an estimated 94,000 Americans seriously ill and killed almost 19,000, compared with 17,000 who died of AIDS.

A painful and virulent skin infection that has plagued Los Angeles County jail inmates is now appearing with increasing frequency throughout Southern California.

With infections that outsmart powerful antibiotics on the rise, doctors and public health officials have long worried that they might face an outbreak of resistant bacteria that threaten large numbers of people.

Rates of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia are climbing in the U.S., and rates of syphilis -- once on the verge of elimination -- rose for the seventh consecutive year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in its annual report on STDs.

The feds were on the phone explaining that a 10-year-old boy had a strain of swine flu no one had ever seen before. As Dr. Michele Ginsberg listened, her mind flashed back to the days before the AIDS virus had been identified, when people were showing up at emergency rooms in California with a mysterious pneumonia.

Health authorities have detected the emergence of a rare but deadly lung-destroying form of pneumonia, sparked by the combination of a skin infection and the common flu.