superbug (Page 8)

Until now, antibiotics have easily killed group A streptococcus, the bacteria that cause strep throat and life-threatening septic infections, but now hospitals have seen a sudden, widespread resistance of the bacteria to widely used antibiotic erythromycin. Strep is becoming a superbug.

Doctors suspect the strep bacteria also are becoming resistant to other popular drugs in the same antibiotic family. The use of these antibiotics is growing because they require only one dose a day, compared with three for many other antibiotics. People who are allergic to penicillin rely on them.
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Doctors in the U.K. have observed the exact moment when a new strain of drug resistant bacteria evolved in a patient. These ?superbugs? are new bacteria that cannot be treated with existing antibiotics. Relatively harmless bacteria are capable of turning into superbugs when they acquire new genetic material from other bacteria that have become resistant to various antibiotics, usually from overexposure to the drugs.

Until now, no one had been able to pinpoint exactly how a regular bug turned into a superbug. This changed when a baby who had been hospitalized from birth because of breathing problems picked up a respiratory tract infection. It was identified as a normal, non-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria and the usual antibiotics were given.
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