Israeli researchers are laying the groundwork for a spray which they say will make it easier to get rid of the antibiotic-resistant germs that plague hospitals around the world. If used on a large scale, their method could change the nature of hospital-acquired infections "toward being more susceptible to antibiotics rather than more resistant," Lead researcher Dr. Udi Qimron, a microbiologist at Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine, said their system works by changing the genetic makeup of antibiotic-resistant bacteria - which he said is vital because these germs have proven impossible to eradicate by other means. Some 1,500 people died of antibiotic-resistant infections in Israeli hospitals last year alone - a 7-percent rise since 2009, according to a Health Ministry report released earlier this year.
