A new U.S. report warns of nightmare bacteria, and Queen’s expert says clean hands and responsible antibiotic use remain students’ best defences.
When researchers warned about “nightmare bacteria” in a report released on Sept. 23, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the phrase made headlines for sounding like something out of a horror movie. The study, which analyzed data from the American Centers for Disease Control between 2019 to 2023, found infections caused by NDM-CRE, a highly resistant strain of bacteria, surged by more than 460 per cent in the United States.
These infections—which include pneumonia, bloodstream, urinary tract, and wound infections—are notoriously hard to treat, difficult to detect, and often deadly, due to labs lacking the necessary testing capacity.
But according to Professor of Medicine at Queen’s and Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Dr. Gerald Evans, the threat isn’t new.
“Nightmare bacteria is really just a scarier term for superbugs, or the emergence of increasingly antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Evans said in an interview with The Journal. “Everyone’s been hearing about this for decades in my field of infectious disease. The new language just draws attention to the danger.”
Superbugs, like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), aren’t rare in Canadian hospitals, including those in Kingston. Still, Evans noted Canada’s in a better position than the United States.
“Canada isn’t immune, but the prevalence is substantially lower,” he said. “While MRSA makes up 70-80 per cent of staph infections in the United States, the number is closer to 25-30 per cent in Canada.”
Antibiotic resistance emerges when bacteria adapt to survive drug treatments, spreading quickly in settings like hospitals and nursing homes. Evans identified Gram-negative bacteria as the biggest concern, since they can transfer resistance genes between species in a process called conjugation, which turns normally manageable pathogens into serious threats.
For students living in residences or crowded houses, Evans said prevention comes down to hygiene.
“Wash your hands. Keep your environment clean. Don’t take antibiotics unless you really need them,” he advised. “Even one course of antibiotics can increase the antibiotic resistance of bacteria in your body for months afterwards.”
He added that the fight against superbugs isn’t new, and the oldest strategies remain the most effective.
“We sometimes forget the most important public health advances were potable water, food safety, and handwashing,” Evans said. “It may sound like what your mom told you—but your mom was right!”
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.