'Nightmare bacteria' spreads in Southeast USA

USA Today | July 31, 2014

Superbugs known as CRE — called "nightmare bacteria" by federal health officials because they are deadly and virtually untreatable — are skyrocketing in the Southeastern USA, new research shows. Experts fear a growing national problem, and some say the spread of such superbugs may portend a "post-antibiotic era."

Cases of the antibiotic-resistant CRE rose fivefold in community hospitals in the region from 2008 to 2012, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found, and they said those rates are likely underestimates.

"We're trying to sound the alarm. This is a problem for all of us in health care," said Deverick J. Anderson, senior author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Duke. "These (bacteria) are just about as bad as it gets."

CRE, short for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, are a family of bacteria that have over time become resistant to last-resort antibiotics. They prey mostly on vulnerable, hospitalized patients and kill nearly half who get bloodstream infections.

CRE are the worst of the worst in a growing sea of pernicious germs resistant to antibiotics that take hold in sick patients in health care settings. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 25 hospitalized patients has at least one health care-associated infection on any given day.

Two of the more common superbugs are C. difficile, which is rising steeply and is linked to about 14,000 American deaths each year, and MRSA, which has been a problem in hospitals for decades. Researchers point to a recent decrease in invasive MRSA infections but estimate there were still more than 80,000 in 2011. MRSA has spread beyond hospitals into communities.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/31/cre-nightmare-bacteria-spread/13322879/