As more antibiotic-resistant bacteria spring up in hospitals across the country, the scramble for new antibiotics becomes ever more hastened. Carpapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, better known as CRE, is an antibiotic resistant bacterium that has made its way into more hospitals, threatening the lives of patients, doctors, families of patients, and any hospital staff. The spread of this “superbug” is mostly due to the use of improperly sanitized health instruments. The real flaw comes from the instrument’s design, in the case of a UCLA hospital that had a CRE outbreak. A duodenoscope has a design that makes it difficult to completely sanitize properly. The hospital admits to at least 179 exposures of patients to CRE, with two deaths having already occurred.

The rise of drug-resistant bacterium is blamed on the over-prescription of antibiotics. Physicians are so pressured into prescribing antibiotics because most patients will insist that the drugs help. Unfortunately, antibiotics don’t cure viruses; they cure for sickness caused by bacteria. The more times a body’s bacteria fights antibiotics, the more antibiotics the bacteria can become resistant to.

A congressional hearing is being sought after for the investigation of the recent CRE outbreak that happened in the Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center. Ted Lieu, a democratic representative from California, claims that the bacteria are “both health and national security” risks.

CRE is not the only drug-resistant bacteria. Klebsiella pneumonia carbapenemase, or KPC, is also found in hospitals across America. In 2013, the National Institute of health had a bout with KPC. Despite being a top research hospital, the bacteria were not contained and patients around the hospital started testing positive for KPC. There was no known link between patient zero and the next infectees. Even after the outbreak, a young man came to the hospital after having complications with a bone marrow transplant; he became infected with KPC and died. There will always be KPC in the hospital now. The only hope for keeping outbreaks to a minimum is to be disciplined and relentless in practice of contamination control.

New antibiotics are being developed now, with the hope of being more potent and being able to combat the similarly resilient bacteria. Researchers have found ways to use soil samples to develop bacteria that typically would not grow in a lab. Teixobactin is one of the viable new antibiotics. It works by breaking down the cell walls of bacteria. It’s very similar to vancomycin, an existing antibiotic. Cells took 30 years to become resistant to vancomycin, so it’s believed cells will take longer to become resistant to teixobactin.