Killer Germ Comes Home With Troops

Link: ABC News: Killer Germ Comes Home With Troops.

Troops arriving home from Iraq and Afghanistan have been carrying a mysterious, deadly bacteria, according to a new magazine report.

Doctors have linked the bacterium acinetobacter baumannii to at least seven deaths, as well as to loss of limbs and other severe ailments, according to the report, which found the bacterium has spread quickly since the war in Afghanistan began in the fall of 2001

Acinetobacter baumannii has been found in military hospitals in Germany, the Washington, D.C., area and Texas -- the primary destinations of wounded service members from the two war zones. And it has now spread to civilians, according to the report.

"The outbreak began traveling with patients or nonpatients from Iraq all the way back to Walter Reed," said Dr. Rox Anderson at Harvard Medical School.