Patients enter the hospital carrying multitudes of bacteria as part of their normal microbial flora.
Most come in with pathogens that, if they go on to cause infection, are treatable. But during their stay patients may become infected with strains that resist treatment, either through contamination or, ironically, as a consequence of treatment. There's a lot of antibiotics in hospitals, which promotes the development of resistant strains. Marc Lipsitch and colleagues have developed a model that could help to monitor and guide hospital attempts to reduce drug-resistant strains of bacteria. It turns out their efforts may be getting a boost from an unexpected source.