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A report released on Tuesday by CDC scientists found that, between 2019 and 2023, there was as much as a 461 percent increase in the infection rate of certain bacteria in the group Enterobacterales that can thwart many antibiotic treatments, including a powerful class of drugs known as carbapenems. These carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) infections are notoriously difficult to treat and can be fatal: In 2020 alone, CRE caused about 12,700 infections and 1,100 deaths in the U.S. Former CDC director Tom Frieden once called CRE nightmare bacteria." The report's authors note that CRE infections are still considered rare and mostly occur in hospital settings. "The biggest thing for us is that we understand where this is happening because we want to ensure that this does not go outside of health care settings [and] into the community and cause more difficult to treat infections." What Did Researchers Find? "We are concerned because there is risk that this could spread into communities, meaning that common infections like urinary tract infections that are usually treated with the oral antibiotics may increasingly need to be treated with the IV antibiotics and require hospitalization." Rankin notes that the situation with NDM-CRE also plays a part in the larger antimicrobial resistance crisis."