Losing the battle

According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this Thursday hospitals need to step up efforts to prevent infections with drug-resistant "superbugs," which are becoming more and more of a threat to patients, the U.S.

The death toll from hospital acquired infections is larger than most people think. Infections caught in U.S. hospitals now kill 90,000 people a year. This is now more than mortality due to breast cancer (about 40,000 per year) and road accidents (also about 40,000 per year).

In a separate story wounded British troops returning from Iraq have been linked by government scientists to outbreaks of a rare strain of Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics. At one hospital in Birmingham in 2003 the bacteria went on to infect 93 people, 91 of whom were civilians.

The bacteria is also a concern in the US army, where it has been identified in more than 240 military personnel since 2003, killing five.

Antibiotic resistance is a fine illustration of evolution in action and the conditions and speed under which resistance appears illustrates a number of important features of natural selection.