Scientists have succeeded in tracking the patient-to-patient transmission of the multi-drug resistant MRSA bacteria, which they hope will allow for better control and prevention of the dreaded superbug. For the first time, researchers have determined how MRSA spreads from one person to another, particularly in hospitals -- the setting where the bacteria often proliferates. "The ability to track strains in this ...

A new kind of genetic sleuthing suggests hospital outbreaks of drug-resistant staph bacteria don't always spread from one patient to another, but that numerous people — patients, visitors or staff — bring in the deadly germ. The finding came as British scientists used in-depth gene scanning to track how a dangerous strain of this bacteria, called MRSA, has spread around the ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found a way to track minutely-differing strains of the "superbug" MRSA as they spread between people and across the globe, a finding that could aid efforts to control the deadly bacteria. An international team lead by researchers from Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute used very high-throughput gene sequencing machines to compare individual MRSA bugs from ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Polar bear droppings are helping scientists shed light on the spread of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Bacteria such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are a growing problem in hospitals and researchers are anxious to understand how they evolve. Norwegian researchers said they had found little sign of such microbes in the feces of polar bears in the remote Arctic ...