CDC Urges Increased Prevention, Surveillance Of Superbugs

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | March 6, 2013

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking hospitals and public health agencies to increase their efforts to track, isolate and hopefully slow the growth of an emerging variety of highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

First detected in one state in 2001 and now present in 42 states, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteria (or CRE) has killed half of all patients whose bloodstream get infected with it, according to a report released by the CDC.

The agency found that CRE was present in about 4 percent of all U.S. hospitals and in about 18 percent of long-term acute care hospitals in the first six months of 2012. CRE are part of a 70 species family, including E. coli, and deaths from them are still relatively rare, the CDC says (without saying how many) — but they’re growing in antibiotic resistance...