The shower and toilet in a hospital room. Multiresistant bacteria can make their home here. | Photo: Peter Klaunzer / keystone-sda

Over six years, the Geneva University Hospitals experienced 103 cases of the multiresistant bacterium Citrobacter freundii. A genetic analysis has now revealed how it spreads. It doesn’t always enter the hospital from outside, because it’s actually established itself there – perhaps in the wastewater system.

This is a cause for concern because it often transfers its resistance directly to other bacteria. Stephan Harbarth, a specialist in infectious diseases, believes that people in hospital should be screened more frequently for resistant bacteria. 

P. Fonton et al.: Epidemiological and Molecular Surveillance of Multiresistant Citrobacter freundii Complex in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Retrospective Cohort Study. The Journal of Infectious Diseases (2026) 

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