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posted by martyb on Sunday August 05 2018, @02:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the life-will-find-a-way dept.

Bacteria are becoming resistant to alcohol-based disinfectants:

Because of the growing numbers of so-called superbugs, hospitals have introduced more stringent cleaning routines. Part of the regimen involves alcohol-based disinfectants, such as hand rubs, positioned in and around hospital wards. Since their introduction, there has been a significant reduction in the number of hospital-based infections. Containing 70 percent isopropyl or ethyl alcohol, alcohol-based hand rubs kill bacteria quickly and effectively.

Over recent years, researchers have noted a steady rise in the number of serious infections caused by one particular drug-resistant bacterium — Enterococcus faecium. Despite the wide use of alcohol-based disinfectants, E. faecium is now a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Dr. Sacha Pidot and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne in Australia set out to understand whether this increased infection rate might be because the bacterium is growing resistant to alcohol. Their findings were published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine [DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aar6115] [DX].

Also at Live Science.

Increasing tolerance of hospital Enterococcus faecium to handwash alcohols:

Alcohol-based disinfectants and particularly hand rubs are a key way to control hospital infections worldwide. Such disinfectants restrict transmission of pathogens, such as multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium. Despite this success, health care infections caused by E. faecium are increasing. We tested alcohol tolerance of 139 hospital isolates of E. faecium obtained between 1997 and 2015 and found that E. faecium isolates after 2010 were 10-fold more tolerant to killing by alcohol than were older isolates. Using a mouse gut colonization model of E. faecium transmission, we showed that alcohol-tolerant E. faecium resisted standard 70% isopropanol surface disinfection, resulting in greater mouse gut colonization compared to alcohol-sensitive E. faecium. We next looked for bacterial genomic signatures of adaptation. Alcohol-tolerant E. faecium accumulated mutations in genes involved in carbohydrate uptake and metabolism. Mutagenesis confirmed the roles of these genes in the tolerance of E. faecium to isopropanol. These findings suggest that bacterial adaptation is complicating infection control recommendations, necessitating additional procedures to prevent E. faecium from spreading in hospital settings.


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  • (Score: 2) by beckett on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:35PM (2 children)

    by beckett (1115) on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:35PM (#717597)

    but follow up with a spray of benign bacteria

    fwiw, "benign" bacterial that make beer and wine also have some alcohol resistance. horizontal gene transfer is common between bacteria, even distantly related ones such as the general "benign" and "pathogenic" categories you're suggesting. this process is how we figure drug resistance is spread to other species. One recent emergence is E. coli that produces Shiga toxins, which was acquired by some strains of e. coli from Shigella. spp. bacteria.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:49PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:49PM (#717600) Journal

    My suggestion is that you could wait for the alcohol to evaporate off of your hands, and then spray bacteria on them, or encase bacteria in nanoparticles (or microparticles) that are somehow protected from the alcohol, and get released after the alcohol threat is gone. The point being to crowd out strains that you don't want on the surface of your hands with strains that you are OK with.

    Some complex or expensive solution may not be warranted in the home, but could be used by doctors and surgeons.

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    • (Score: 2) by beckett on Sunday August 05 2018, @10:02PM

      by beckett (1115) on Sunday August 05 2018, @10:02PM (#717636)

      The point being to crowd out strains that you don't want on the surface of your hands with strains that you are OK with.

      as above, those are broad, amorphous categories that may have unintended consequences, such as transferring resistance to pathogenic strains. The general categories you're using are also amorphous snd subjective e.g. how do you define 'strains that you are ok with'? skin microbiomes may have different compositions between people; what is 'ok' for the doctor may not be 'ok' for a patient who is taking an immunosuppressor, etc.