'Nightmare Bacteria' Spread In Southeast

Superbugs known as CRE — called "nightmare bacteria" by federal health officials because they are deadly and virtually untreatable — are skyrocketing in the Southeastern USA, new research shows. Experts fear a growing national problem, and some say the spread of such superbugs may portend a "post-antibiotic era."  Cases of the antibiotic-resistant CRE rose fivefold in community hospitals in the region from 2008 to 2012, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found, and they said those rates are likely underestimates.

"We're trying to sound the alarm. This is a problem for all of us in health care," said Deverick J. Anderson, senior author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Duke. "These (bacteria) are just about as bad as it gets."

CRE, short for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, are a family of bacteria that have over time become resistant to last-resort antibiotics. They prey mostly on vulnerable, hospitalized patients and kill nearly half who get bloodstream infections.  CRE are the worst of the worst in a growing sea of pernicious germs resistant to antibiotics that take hold in sick patients in health care settings...