Researchers have developed a new genomic technique that can track the spread of multiple superbugs in a hospital simultaneously, which could help prevent and manage common hospital infections quicker and more effectively than ever before. The proof-of-concept study, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo in Italy, and collaborators, details a new deep sequencing approach that captures all the common infectious in a at once. Current methods culture and sequence all pathogens separately, which takes longer and requires more work.
Published 20 August in the , the study captured the whole population of pathogenic bacteria found in multiple hospital intensive care units (ICUs) and ordinary wards during the first wave of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers could see the type of bacteria patients had, including any well-known antibiotic-resistant pathogens found in hospitals. They discovered that each ICU patient tested in the study was colonized by at least one such treatment-resistant bacteria, while the majority were colonized by several of them simultaneously.
Researchers believe their approach could be integrated with existing hospital clinical surveillance systems. As is a widespread issue in hospitals and other clinical settings, this system could identify, track and limit the spread of common multiple treatment-resistant bacteria at the same time. Bacteria are commonly found in or on the body without causing ha.