For several years, doctors have been warning of the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria. Bacteria become more deadly as they mutate to survive increasing potent drugs. Yuen told the Post that a decade earlier, Hong Kong doctors discovered a case of streptococcus pneumonia that was resistant to penicillin, but now 70 percent of the cases here are resistant. Part of the problem is an overwillingness on the part of doctors and patients to use antibiotics for routine illnesses that could be cured by people's natural immune systems, which makes the medicines less effective. Staph, a virulent bacterium that lives on human skin, is a common cause of infections.
Many people have the germ, and it's usually harmless.
But the germ can occasionally enter the body through wounds and cause serious infections of the skin, soft tissues, bones and joints. It spreads through direct contact and can cause pneumonia and fatal bacteremia, or bacterial infection of the blood, which reportedly killed the woman in Hong Kong.