Phantom Menace Bacterial Family-Newest Health Threat in the U.S.

Phantom menace bacterial family-newest health threat in the U.S. accorded to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report published this Thursday.

Scientifically, the phantom menace bacterial family is known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae (CRE). A family of superbugs, the bacteria is highly resistant to antibiotic treatment. Moreover, the rate of mortality due to infection is also high, with 50 percent of the patients becoming fatally ill according to the same CDC report.

CRE has the potential to spread rapidly throughout the nation as it is resilient in the face of antibiotic treatment. The phantom menace is a relatively new bacteria carrying a plasmid capable of breaking down most antibiotics attacking it with just an enzyme. The CDC report also explains that the urgency of the matter is embedded in the fact that the phantom menace can transfer the same plasmid and thus the superbug trait to any bacteria in the human body.

Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC declared that the phantom menace hasn’t been in focus until now as:

“This is a tricky drug-resistant bacteria, and it isn’t easily found. What we’re seeing is an assault by the microbes on the last bastion of antibiotics”.

According to the CDC report, the CRE bacterial family is a serious health threat as it has the potential to rapidly spread all over the globe due to antibiotic-resistance, little testing and the capacity to transfer plasmid to other bacteria as well. In China, the CRE bacterial family was found to have become immune to colistin, an antibiotic that was easily broken down due to the plasmid.

As the news that the phantom menace bacterial family-newest health threat in the U.S. came out,  Doctor William Schaffner with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville declared the American population hasn’t much reason to worry just yet. The CDC report is important to the medical community keeping track of bacteria and potential high risk they pose, as well as superbugs.

The preventive medicine professor also explained that it is important the medical community pay attention to such developments as the number of antibiotic treatments are reducing considerably.

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