A killer began stalking infants at Westchester County Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., at the end of 1995. This was no ordinary assassin. It was a bacterium called vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, known to doctors as VRE, that lurks in hospitals. It can kill if left untreated.
Few antibiotics can stop it.
And babies were testing positive for VRE in the medical center's preemie ward. This tale has a happy ending. No babies died from the bug. The hospital changed its procedure, and the VRE spread was halted. The age of the hospital superbug has dawned.