Deadly, nearly untreatable superbugs known as CRE, dubbed “nightmare bacteria,” have spread at an alarming rate throughout the southeastern region of the US in recent years, new research indicates.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found cases of antibiotic-resistant CRE - or carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae - increased by at least a factor of five in community hospitals across the region from 2008 to 2012.

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

CRE are a family of bacteria that live in one’s guts, often without causing illness. Yet when the bacteria escape - during ICU treatment, for example - they often cause major hospital-induced infections. One in 25 hospitalized patients contract at least one health-care-related infection on any given day, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The bacteria prey mostly on vulnerable, hospitalized patients, killing nearly half of those who catch bloodstream infections.

RT