In recent years, greater appreciation for microbes inhabiting human body sites has emerged. In the female mammary gland, milk has been shown to contain bacterial species, reaching the ducts from the skin. Researchers have also discovered a diverse population of bacteria within tissue collected from sites all around the breast in women ages 18 to 90, not all of whom had a history of lactation...

While GBS screenings are the standard in the US and in Europe, there are still parts of the world where the 1 in 5 women globally who carry GBS may not receive screening or treatment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a study led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, involving more than 100 researchers who published a series of 11 research papers reporting on GBS occurances...

Antibiotic development has had its challenges recently; and while the concern of drug-resistant Gram-negative has been vastly described since the past couple of decades, there is a growing light at the end of the tunnel with the recent approval of the broad spectrum antimicrobials between 2015-17. Even more encouraging is the potential regulatory filing and approval of several antimicrobial candidates...

In an attempt to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics, researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a tool that physicians can use to distinguish between a bacterial or viral infection in a patient that is suffering from an infection. Antibiotics are useless in treating viral infections; sadly, bacterial resistance is stimulated by the indiscriminate and often unnecessary use of...

As we progress through the 21st Century, the looming threat of antimicrobial resistance and the urgent call for action have been expressed by the medical community worldwide.  Bacterial resistance mechanisms are becoming increasingly more common, especially to broad spectrum beta (β)-lactam antibiotics which include penicllins, cephalosporins, monobactams, and carbapenems....

My wife is eight months pregnant and her due date is creeping ever closer with each passing day. In this last month, many preparations are being made in our home. We have assembled the cradle, put away the copious amount of clothes our generous parents have given us (it's our first child), and the house has never been so clean. My wife is also making her own personal preparations. She is eating extremely...

If one antibiotic resistant bacteria that makes the news often, it is MRSA. Whether it be the recent

infection of newborns at a major clinic or the infection of a national football team due to improper cleaning of gym equipment, MRSA accrues a lot of airtime. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Staphylococcus aureus is most commonly...

With Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) on the rise among hospital acquired infections across America in hospitals and care facilities, infection control specialists have been scrambling to prevent the acceleration of this toxic and destructive bacterium. Where does CDI come from? Where is it going? How can we avoid it? With nearly half a million impacted yearly from this infection...

Given the prevalence of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in the United States, several companies are making efforts to develop technologies to reduce the occurrence of HAIs.  In a multistate point-prevalence survey of health care-associated infections in published in 2014, it was estimated that there were about 648,000 patients with 721,800 health care-associated infections in U.S. acute care...