A new strain of bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, is showing a dangerous surge in U.S. hospitals, as reported by the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. This too is a multidrug resistant strain of bacteria like MRSA and Clostridium difficile, and poses the greatest risk to seriously ill patients.
Acinetobacter species are ubiquitous, living in soil and water. The organism can survive for extended periods in the environment and tolerates both wet and dry conditions. This property makes it possible for the bacteria to survive in lungs and blood, causing severe pneumonia and blood stream infections. The organism can survive for months on clothing and bedclothes, bed rails, ventilators and other surfaces in the environment, including sinks and doorknobs, making any transmission of infection extremely difficult to control. 
Outbreaks are frequently located in intensive-care units and burn units involving patients on mechanical ventilation. Sources of transmission identified in the outbreak setting include predominately respiratory equipment such as resuscitator bags, valves, ventilator circuits, spirometers, peak flow meters, suction catheters, etc. In the U.S. hospitals, outbreaks were seen in intensive care units and have recently weighed down soldiers returning home from the war in Iraq.
Multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has been reported worldwide and is now recognized as one of the most difficult healthcare-associated infections to control and treat. “The findings are troubling because they suggest this bacteria is becoming resistant to nearly everything in our arsenal,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, the principal investigator of Extending the Cure, a project examining antibiotic resistance at the Washington, D.C. based think-tank Resources for the Future.
However, spokesperson for the Health Protection Agency in UK says “Acinetobacter can cause problems in those who are already seriously ill with weakened immune systems”. Dr Andrew Berrington, a consultant microbiologist at Sunderland Royal Hospital, said there was little evidence to suggest outbreaks of Acinetobacter were becoming more common in the UK. He adds, “We mustn’t be complacent but currently its impact can be geographically constrained – some hospitals struggle to control outbreaks, others see very little of it.”
Article by Snigdha Taduri for Biomed-ME