Preventing antibiotic resistance in hospital textiles

“Antibiotic resistance threatens a return to the pre-antibiotic era”. The World Health Organisation uses this strong expression when referring to a phenomenon that is rapidly spreading: the increasing resistance of microorganisms to antimicrobial medicines, such as antibiotics. WHO estimates indicate that the excess mortality due to resistant bacterial hospital infections exceeds 25,000 every year, in Europe. “Nowadays, if you acquire an infection in a hospital, it is extremely rare for the infecting bacterium to not be resistant to multiple antibiotics,” says Australian microbiologist Harold Stokes, research director at the ithree institute, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

Further information: cordis.europa.eu