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CDC Issues Warning For “Nightmare” Superbugs
April 5, 2018Accessible by: anyone
The stakes are higher than ever for thorough cleaning of health care facilities as health departments found more than 220 instances of germs with unusual antibiotic-resistance genes in the United States last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC tested 5,776 antibiotic-resistant germs from hospitals and nursing homes and found that about one in four had a gene that helped spread its resistance, while 221 contained a rare resistance gene, CNN reports.
Pathogens with a rare resistance gene cannot be killed by all or most antibiotics, are uncommon in a geographic area, or have specific genes that allow them to spread their resistance to other germs. Two million Americans get infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year.
This was the first year the CDC began testing germs for rare antibiotic-resistant genes.