Mar 2, 2013

Reports of rare superbug jump in US, CDC says - #Health

...In the U.S. today, the most common type of highly drug-resistant germs known as CREs are the Klebsiella pneumonia bacteria like those shown here. Nearly untreatable, they're being detected in a growing number of health care settings.

A sharp jump in the number of rare but potentially deadly types of a superbug resistant to nearly all last-resort antibiotics has prompted government health officials to renew warnings for U.S. hospitals, nursing homes and other health care settings.
The move comes just as researchers in Israel are reporting that people who carry dangerous CRE -- Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae -- can take more than a year before they test negative for the bacteria, making it more difficult to control and raising the risk of wider spread.

Reports of unusual forms of CRE have nearly doubled in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this month.  

“This increase highlights the need for U.S. health care providers to act aggressively to prevent the emergence and spread of these unusual CRE organisms,” the CDC said in a health advisory.

Please read more By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News:
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17105852-reports-of-rare-superbug-jump-in-us-cdc-says