News

CDC Issues Warning For “Nightmare” Superbugs

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.