Deadly Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug Spreads in Southern California

An antibiotic-resistant superbug once thought to be rare is spreading through health-care facilities in Southern California, health officials say. Roughly 350 cases of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, were reported in Los Angeles County between June and December of 2010, according to a study from the L.A. County Department of Public Health to be presented April 3 in Dallas at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

"These patients tend to be elderly, they are commonly on ventilators and they often stay at the facility for an extended period of time," Dr. Dawn Terashita, medical epidemiologist and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

CRKP joins other superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in a league of bacteria that outwits typical antibiotics.

"We develop new drugs to defeat the infections and germs change to get around those drugs and this is one of those cases," Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News chief health and medical editor, said today in an interview on ABC News' "Good Morning America."

Besser is a former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"It's like an arms race and in many ways the germs are winning," he said.

 Read on at ABC