These germs are resistant to antibiotics, constitute a major threat to public health

Mar 6, 2013 07:13 GMT  ·  By
Nightmare bacteria are an ever more common sight in the US, federal officials warn
   Nightmare bacteria are an ever more common sight in the US, federal officials warn

This past Tuesday, federal officials in the United States decided to go public with the news that, according to their investigations, infections with so-called nightmare bacteria are now on the rise amongst the country's population.

As they explain, these bacteria constitute a major threat to public health due to their being resistant to almost all of the antibiotics doctors currently have at their disposal.

Thus, it appears that, more often than not, even the strongest of antibiotics are unsuccessful when it comes to helping patients infected with these bacteria get back on their feet.

As well as this, these antibiotics-resistant bacteria can “teach” others of their kind to behave in the same manner, something which is bound to translate into the country's population coming to face even more threats.

“The mechanism of resistance to antibiotics not only works for one bacteria, but can be spread to others,” explained Dr. Thomas Frieden, currently employed as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Furthermore, these bacteria are known to kill roughly 50% of the individuals they come to infect, which is why federal officials argue that something need soon be done in order to contain their spread.

Sources say that this rise in the number of reported cases of infections with nightmare bacteria has become obvious throughout the past ten years.

By the looks of it, people whose immune system is not all that efficient (i.e. children, elders and individuals already suffering from other medical conditions) are the ones most likely to be affected by them.

The scientific community refers to these nightmare bacteria as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE, for short) and maintains that, for the time being, they have only been found in hospitals nationwide.

However, they fear that, should these potentially deadly germs eventually hit the streets, their spread might become uncontrollable.

“We're not talking about an iceberg that's down the line. The ship has hit the iceberg. We're taking on water. We already have people dying. Not only of CRE, but of untreatable CRE.”

“If CRE spreads out of hospitals and into communities, that's when the ship is totally underwater and we all drown,” stated Dr. Brad Spellberg, a specialist now working with the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.