According to a study conducted in Spain, 40 percent of meat products sold in supermarkets contain bacteria resistant to multiple drugs. In light of this, doctors in Japan recommend that consumers educate themselves on the risks of consuming contaminated meat, opt for organic meat products that are free of antibiotics whenever possible, and avoid thawing…

The term ‘superbug’ conjures images of bacteria with superpowers—able to evade the effects of the antibiotics given to destroy them. The prolific use of antibiotics is thought to be the cause, and bacteria, in a fight for their survival, have adapted—making an increasing number of antibiotics ineffective against a growing number of bacterial infections. A…

Superbugs face a new threat as scientists from the University of South Australia (UniSA) develop a light-activated treatment that destroys some of the most infamous and potentially deadly bacteria globally. The antimicrobial light therapy was tested on defiant infections caused by antibiotic-resistant (AMR) strains of staphylococcus aureus (Golden Staph) and pseudomonas aeruginosa, two of the six most lethal…

Commentary Hospital rooms, operating rooms, and medical equipment are so inadequately cleaned that any patient going into a hospital is at risk of getting a deadly superbug. That’s true even if you’re going for the happiest reason of all: to give birth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data shows alarming increases in…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a life-threatening infection of a superbug spiked in hospitals, raising a big concern. MRSA, which stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is one of the well known superbugs, which are bacterias that are resistant to most antibiotics. Since 2010, laboratory-identified cases of MRSA infection have been significantly decreasing. However, as the COVID-19…

The latest study of the Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, showed that the infection rate of a broad spectrum of drug-resistant superbugs, carbapenemase-producing enterobacteriaceae (CPE), keeps on increasing. The number of cases has reached over 1,000 since 2014. The infection rate of CPE in high-risk patients increased nearly 40-fold from 2015 to…

For nearly a century, bacteria-fighting drugs known as antibiotics have helped to control and destroy many of the harmful bacteria that can make us sick. But in recent decades, antibiotics have been losing their punch against some types of bacteria. In fact, certain bacteria are now unbeatable with today’s medicines. Sadly, the way we’ve been…

On July 13, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a recent investigation of a listeria outbreak. The incident began when Big Olaf Creamery in Florida was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes during the production of its ice cream, and the company recalled all of its ice cream after the incident. The incident caused cases…

A preclinical study led by researchers from Monash University has discovered that a combination of phage and antibiotic therapy may be the most effective to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. “We have been able to confirm that, even in complex living systems, treatment with our characterised phages can reliably steer bacteria towards a phage-resistant variant that is…

A newly discovered natural antibiotic, teixobactin, could be effective in treating bacterial lung conditions such as tuberculosis and those commonly associated with COVID-19, according to the new study. As bacteria evolve, they develop strategies that undermine antibiotics and morph into “superbugs” that can resist most available treatments and cause potentially lethal infections. The new work…