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NEW YORK: Infection rates from drug-resistant “nightmare bacteria” rose almost 70 percent between 2019 and 2023, according to a new report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists.
Bacteria that are difficult to treat due to the so-called NDM gene primarily drove the increase, CDC researchers wrote in an article published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Only two antibiotics work against those infections, and the drugs are expensive and must be administered through an IV, researchers said.
Bacteria with the gene were once considered exotic, linked to a small number of patients who received medical care overseas. Though the numbers are still small, the rate of US cases jumped more than fivefold in recent years, the researchers reported.
“The rise of NDMs in the US is a grave danger and very worrisome,” said David Weiss, an Emory University infectious diseases researcher, in an email.
It’s likely many people are unrecognized carriers of the drug-resistant bacteria, which could lead to community spread, the CDC scientists said.

That may play out in doctors’ offices across the country, as infections long considered routine — like urinary tract infections — could become harder to treat, said Dr. Maroya Walters, one of the report’s authors.
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when germs such as bacteria and fungi gain the power to fight off the drugs designed to kill them. The misuse of antibiotics was a big reason for the rise — unfinished or unnecessary prescriptions that didn’t kill the germs made them stronger.
In recent years, the CDC has drawn attention to ” nightmare bacteria ” resistant to a wide range of antibiotics. That includes carbapenems, a class of antibiotics considered a last resort for treatment of serious infections.
Researchers drew data from 29 states that do the necessary testing and reporting of carbapenem-resistant bacteria.
They counted 4,341 cases of carbapenem-resistant bacterial infections from those states in 2023, with 1,831 of them the NDM variety. The researchers did not say how many of the infected people died.
The rate of carbapenem-resistant infections rose from just under 2 per 100,000 people in 2019 to more than 3 per 100,000 in 2023 — an increase of 69 percent. But the rate of NDM cases rose from around 0.25 to about 1.35 — an increase of 460 percent, the authors said.
A researcher not involved in the study said the increase is probably related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We know that there was a huge surge in antibiotic use during the pandemic, so this likely is reflected in increasing drug resistance,” said Dr. Jason Burnham, a Washington University researcher, in an email.
The CDC’s count is only a partial picture.
Many states are not fully testing and reporting cases. Even in states that do, cases tend to be among hospital patients sick enough to warrant special testing. Many hospitals also aren’t able to do the testing needed to detect certain forms of genetic resistance.
The CDC researchers did not have data from some of the most populous states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas, which means the absolute number of US infections “is definitely underestimated,” Burnham said.
This is not the first study to report a rise. A CDC report published in June noted an increase in NDM cases in New York City between 2019 and 2024.

 

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that he has decided that the 20 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for the actions in 1890 at Wounded Knee will keep their awards in a video posted to social media Thursday evening.
Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, ordered the review of the awards in 2024 after a Congressional recommendation in the 2022 defense bill — itself a reflection of efforts by some lawmakers to rescind the awards for those who participated in the bloody massacre on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Wounded Knee Creek.
While the events of that day are sometimes described as a battle, historical records show that the US Army, which was in the midst of amid a campaign to repress the tribes in the area, killed an estimated 250 Native Americans, including women and children, of the Lakota Sioux tribe, while attempting to disarm Native American fighters who had already surrendered at their camp.
“We’re making it clear that (the soldiers) deserve those medals,” Hegseth said in the video, before adding that “their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.”
After the fighting, Medals of Honor were given to 20 soldiers from the 7th Cavalry Regiment, and their awards cite a range of actions including bravery, efforts to rescue fellow troops and actions to “dislodge Sioux Indians” who were concealed in a ravine.
The event also became a celebrated part of the regiment’s history, with their coat of arms still featuring the head of a Native American chief to “commemorate Indian campaigns,” according to the military’s Institute of Heraldry.
In 1990, Congress apologized to the descendants of those killed at Wounded Knee but did not revoke the medals.
According to Hegseth, the review panel ordered by Austin “concluded that these brave soldiers should, in fact, rightfully keep their medals from actions,” but an official from the defense secretary’s office couldn’t say if the report he was referencing in the video would be made public.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that decried efforts to reinterpret American history and, since then, Hegseth has undertaken multiple actions that have subverted the recommendations of a Congressionally-mandated commission that examined the use of Confederate names and references in the military.
He reverted the names of several Army bases back to their original, Confederate-linked names, though by honoring different figures.
Hegseth also restored a 1914 memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery. The monument features a classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, representing the American South, alongside sanitized depictions of slavery.
In September, the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, also confirmed that a painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform was back on display in the school’s library after being removed in 2022. The portrait shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, which had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed in storage.