Scientists fear catastrophic outbreak Staph bacteria are the No. 1 cause of hospital infections. Overall, these 2 million infections kill 60,000 to 80,000 people.
Bacteria can collect on clothing, blankets, walls, medical equipment.
Hospital workers can pass them on by hand, and they can cling to tubes into the body. Press Atlanta A staph germ that causes thousands of often deadly infections among hospital patients each year is becoming resistant to medicine's drug of last resort and could soon prove to be unstoppable. A new strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria that was discovered in a Japanese infant showed resistance for the first time against vancomycin , which has been around since 1970 and is used when other antibiotics fail. It is not a cause for panic, but it is a cause for concern. The strain has not yet reached U.S. hospitals, but health experts said it is only a matter of time before it does .