home .Featured, Antimicrobials and Resistance, Healthcare, Infectious Diseases, Urban Microbiomes Evolution happens: Bacteria becoming resistant to hospital disinfectants

Evolution happens: Bacteria becoming resistant to hospital disinfectants

Well, if true this is both troubling and not surprising: Bacteria becoming resistant to hospital disinfectants, warn scientists | Society | The Guardian

The story reports on a paper in Science Translational Medicine. Some quotes:

The results reveal that Enterococcus faecium bacteria have become more tolerant to alcohol over that time.

“We found that the new isolates, post-2010, were 10 times more tolerant to alcohol exposure than the earlier isolates,” said Stinear.

And

Further work by the team involved studying genetic mutations in alcohol tolerant Enterococcus faecium isolates, suggesting that the bacteria are evolving to become more tolerant.

Again, of course this should not be surprising. Any time we try to kill microbes with some method, it is guaranteed that resistance will emerge in some way.  But it is still scary …

3 thoughts on “Evolution happens: Bacteria becoming resistant to hospital disinfectants

  1. Has anyone looked at the microbiomes on surgeons or doctors themselves? Being around all those disinfectants as well as interacting with so many people and being around different diseases. How does the skin and gut microbiome of doctors and surgeons differ from the rest of us?

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