Five Strains Of Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found Inside The International Space Station
Orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) is home to a handful of scientists and astronauts constantly inhabiting the orbital outpost — and to a host of microbes that have taken up residence on board the research facility. Among these microbes, scientists have recently discovered five strains of Enterobacter — a drug-resistant hospital bug known to cause a series of dangerous infections, reports RT.
The fact that germs can be found on the ISS is hardly a revelation — “Where there are people, there are bacteria, even in space,” NASA stated a few years ago, when the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, published a study on the microbes found in dust particles collected from the space station’s air filters.
Nevertheless, finding five different varieties of Enterobacter onboard the orbiting laboratory could pose a threat to future space station expeditions, especially given the drug-resistant profile of the bacterium strains.
