Washington: Health authorities in the United States are raising alarms over a sharp increase in infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria, often referred to as “nightmare bacteria”. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that infections by these dangerous bacteria rose by almost 70 percent between 2019 and 2023.

Researchers attribute the surge to bacteria carrying the New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM) gene. Once considered exotic and mostly found in a few patients outside the United States, these bacteria are now appearing with increasing frequency across the country. The presence of the NDM gene can render carbapenems, the last line of defense in antibiotics, completely ineffective.

David Weiss, an infectious diseases researcher at Emory Unive

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