The scary truth about antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Harvard University's team warns, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are diverse, active, widespread, silently transmitted without any sign of recognition.

Last year, CRE (carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae - Enterobacteriaceae / family of intestinal bacteria against the Carbapenem drug) is mentioned with the dreaded name: "Bacterial nightmare" . The nickname was given by the director of the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Prevention (CDC) - Dr. Tom Frieden - after seeing and demonstrating that it is immune to many antibiotics. how.

But a group of scientists at Harvard University with their new research shows that that way of speech is still mild compared to the dangerous truth of this bacterium.

CRE bacteria against both Carbapenem drugs made scientists very concerned because of their level of development, their hard-to-detect activity - (Photo: Getty Images).

The team led by epidemiology professor Dr. William Hanage at Harvard Chan School reviewed about 250 CRE samples of patients admitted from 3 Boston hospitals and 1 hospital in California.

After analysis, scientists discovered that CRE has more diverse species than ever before, and each species has its own resistance characteristics. It is worrisome that species learn from each other, share and spread resistance genes that some of them have never been discovered before.

Worse, scientists believe that CRE can be transmitted from person to person without symptoms so that we know it early.

"Our new findings suggest that CRE is spreading beyond the obvious cases of disease. We need to take a closer look at the silent transmission of this unknown sign in the community and Health care facilities if we want to extinguish it, "Dr. William Hanage warned.

CRE is a class of bacteria that are resistant to many antibiotics, including Carbapenem - considered the last antidote for patients when other antibiotics have failed. It is estimated that CRE tends to spread in hospitals and long-term care facilities and causes about 9,300 cases of infection and 600 deaths in the United States each year. CDC said this rate is increasing.

The research project led by William Hanage aims at four objectives: Get a glimpse of CRE's genetic diversity; to determine how often and how outbreaks occur; CRE evidence spreads in and between hospitals; study how antibiotics spread among CRE species.

Antibiotic resistance genes move easily from one species to another.

It is different from previous studies - often checking only one outbreak at a given time. Through this study, the team of scientists found what Dr. Hanage calls "the riot of diversity" between CRE species and between carbapenem resistance genes.

They also found that antibiotic resistance genes move easily from species to species, contributing to the ongoing threat of CRE development. In addition, the team found out more mechanisms of drug resistance never seen before.

Dr. Hanage asserted that the only way to control CREs' popularity is to increase the genetic surveillance of these dangerous bacteria.

Dr. Hanage said: "In order to prevent CRE, it is best to prevent transmission from the start. If we ignore many lines, we only focus on specific cases such as playing mouse mouses (Whack-a). -Mole) then we can be sure that bacteria will quickly reappear elsewhere ".