The infection rate of one type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales bacteria has risen by more than 460 percent in recent years. Scientists say people receiving treatment in hospitals are at highest risk. By Lauren J. Young
The infection rate of one type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales bacteria has risen by more than 460 percent in recent years. Scientists say people receiving treatment in hospitals are at highest risk
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is raising alarm about a sharp spike in infections from dangerous bacteria that are resistant to some of the strongest antibiotics.
A report released on Tuesday by CDC scientists found that, between 2019 and 2023, there was as much as a 461 percent increase in the infection rate of certain bacteria in the group Enterobacterales that can thwart many antibiotic treatments, including a powerful class of drugs known as carbapenems. Carbapenems are used to treat severe multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, including pneumonia and bloodstream, bone and urinary tract infections. These carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) infections are notoriously difficult to treat and can be fatal: In 2020 alone, CRE caused about 12,700 infections and 1,100 deaths in the U.S. Former CDC director Tom Frieden once called CRE “nightmare bacteria.”
The report’s authors note that CRE infections are still considered rare and mostly occur in hospital settings. Still, the rise in infections highlighted in the new study is cause for some concern.
“It was shocking to see how large of an increase it was,” says Danielle Rankin, a co-author of the new report and an epidemiologist at the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “The biggest thing for us is that we understand where this is happening because we want to ensure that this does not go outside of health care settings [and] into the community and cause more difficult to treat infections.”
- Lauren J. Young is an associate editor for health and medicine at Scientific American. She has edited and written stories that tackle a wide range of subjects, including the COVID pandemic, emerging diseases, evolutionary biology and health inequities.
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