When an illness-causing bug won't disappear with the usual drugs, patients are given last-resort antibiotics such as carbapenem. Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, or CREs as they are more commonly know, are a family of germs that are difficult to treat. "A lot of people have done a lot of really good work by focusing on things like outbreaks," Hanage said. First, the researchers found very little evidence of direct transmission between patients who became sick. In other words, people colonized with these germs may spread them, a la Typhoid Mary, without ever becoming sick themselves.

Source: Egypt Independent January 17, 2017 12:51 UTC