New research suggests it is possible to quickly and accurately diagnose some the most dangerous and drug-resistant types of bacterial infections, using equipment already owned by most hospitals.
Bacteria have been gradually evolving to become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat them. Over the last few year, scientists have found evidence that some bacteria have become resistant to a last resort antibiotic called colistin.
Now, in a presentation at the 27th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), researchers described how they were able to test bacteria to quickly tell whether they were resistant to colistin, and how easily they might pass this resistance on to other bacteria.
