A hospital washing machine spread a drug-resistant bacteria to babies, study says

A washing machine used to clean newborn clothing harbored a multidrug-resistant bacteria and spread it to multiple patients, a new case study from Germany suggests. Published Friday in the peer-reviewed Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal, the study found that some newborns in a German hospital tested positive for a strain of Klebsiella oxytoca that was picked up on knitted clothes washed in a household washing machine in the hospital.