Superbacteria’s double defense against antibiotics is discovered

Superbacteria’s double defense against antibiotics is discovered

A handful of microbes have put global health on the ropes. They are the superbugs, considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be one of the 10 main threats to public health and responsible for 1.27 million deaths a year. The WHO is specifically targeting 15 microorganisms considered “highly dangerous” due to their resistance to the arsenal of available antibiotics and their ability to spread or transmit resistance to other bacteria. Sworn enemies include, for example, resistant Gram-negative bacteria, Salmonella, Shigella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, among others. Regarding the latter, research published on Thursday in the journal Science has delved into their mechanisms for escaping antimicrobials and has discovered that, in order to be highly resistant, these microbes adopt a double defense.

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