Each year, nearly 2 million patients in the United States get an infection as a result of receiving health care in a hospital. These hospital-acquired infections are often difficult to treat because the bacteria and other microorganisms that cause them frequently are resistant to antimicrobial drugs. Bacteria, fungi, and even viruses can become resistant to drugs. However, bacteria cause most of the drug-resistant problems in hospitals.
Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics in a variety of ways.
And once a particular type of bacteria has developed resistance to a drug, it can pass on this resistance to other types of bacteria. In some cases, these organisms are resistant to all approved antibiotics and must be treated with experimental and potentially very toxic drugs. The more often a drug is used, the more likely bacteria are to develop resistance to it. For this reason, and to combat the problem of drug-resistant bacteria, CDC has developed recommendations to help ensure that drugs are prescribed only when appropriate. These recommendations, together with other CDC guidelines for infection control, are helping to limit the spread of drug-resistant infections in the nation's hospitals.