U.S. Black, Hispanic dialysis patients at greater risk of dangerous bloodstream infections: report

People walk past Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago in Chicago, the United States, on Dec. 12, 2022. (Photo by Joel Lerner/Xinhua)

Rates of infection are particularly high among people who are Black or Hispanic or who have a lower socioeconomic status.

NEW YORK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Patients with failing kidneys who need regular dialysis treatments still have sky-high rates of dangerous staph infections in their blood compared with people who don't need these treatments, according to a new Vital Signs report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Rates of infection are particularly high among people who are Black or Hispanic or who have a lower socioeconomic status," CNN reported early this week, quoting the Vital Signs report.

More than half a million Americans rely on regular dialysis treatments to filter toxins from their blood because their kidneys are no longer working as well as they should. Dialysis relies on the use of catheters and needles which circulate a patient's blood through a machine in order to clean it.

"Germs like staph can get into the patient's bloodstream via these access points," Debra Houry, acting principal deputy director of the CDC, said during a news briefing on Monday. "These infections can be serious or deadly, and some are resistant to some of the most common antibiotics used to treat them."

The study shows that between 2017 and 2020, patients on hemodialysis had an annual rate of bloodstream infections caused by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus that was 100 times higher than adults who are not on dialysis -- 4,248 infections for every 100,000 person years compared with 42 of 100,000 person years, respectively.