Monday, January 16, 2017

Superbugs "R" Us


This pink variant on slime is not referring to Ghostbusters II but rather is of Klebsiella pneumoniae (a) bacteria ... commonly found in the human gastrointestinal tract, and are often the cause of hospital acquired, or nosocomial infections involving the urinary and pulmonary systems. Photo by CDC that can become a superbug, resistant to all antibiotics, if given a chance, something that happened to a woman who died in Reno after visiting India where she was treated for a broken bone.

Public health officials from Nevada are reporting on a case of a woman who died in Reno in September from an incurable infection. 

Testing showed the superbug that had spread throughout her system could fend off 26 different antibiotics.

“It was tested against everything that’s available in the United States … and was not effective,” said Dr. Alexander Kallen, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of health care quality promotion.

This is where it gets scary. Click - Evolution in Real Time to see BRT's take on superbugs.

Antibiotics are failing us on a catastrophic scale. Once a magic bullet against infectious diseases, they’ve grown increasingly impotent as bacteria have evolved resistance. An estimated 700,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and within a few decades, that toll may rise to several million.

We live in interesting times.



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