Spreading

Hospitals serve as centers for the formation and transmission of drug-resistant organisms. About 2 million Americans are infected in hospitals each year and more than half of these infections resist at least one antibiotic, according to Dennis Maki, a University of Wisconsin-Madison expert in hospital infections. In 1992, 13,300 hospital patients were killed by drug-resistant bacteria in the United States. Bacteria learn from our mistakes. Once resistance develops, all offspring of that bacterium get it. Once the resistant strain is made, everybody who is infected with it will have that resistance problem.