Emerging bug pilfers DNA
By Brian Vastag
A bacterium that’s spreading in U.S. hospitals and on the battlefields of the Middle East has filched some of its most dangerous genes from other bacteria, say researchers who sequenced the bug’s genome.
In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 240 U.S. soldiers in the Middle East had suffered antibiotic-resistant bloodborne infections due to Acinetobacter baumannii. Stateside hospitals have also reported a rise in stubborn infections from the bug. According to previous research, it kills up to 75 percent of the people it infects.