This graphic shows how a patient might get CRE and how CRE are spread.
Jan has a stroke and goes to a local short-stay hospital. She is stable, but needs long-term critical care at another long-term facility.
In long-term acute-care hospital, other patients in this facility have CRE. A nurse doesn’t wash his hands, and CRE are spread to Jan. She develops a fever and is put on antibiotics without proper testing.
A few days later Jan becomes unstable and goes back to the local short-stay hospital, but the new doctors don’t know that she has CRE. A doctor doesn’t wash her hands after treating Jan and CRE are spread to other patients.
How CRE Take Over
- Lots of germs in the human gut, one or two are CRE.
- Antibiotics kill off good bacteria.
- CRE grow.
- CRE share genetic defenses and make other bacteria resistant too.
