bacilli

However, if the bacilli become active—when someone’s immune system is compromised, as with AIDS—they multiply rapidly into a bone-eating, lung-consuming illness that, unless treated, is fatal.

Swabs from the skin, nose and mouth, as well as saliva and stool samples, showed that 34 percent of all participants had antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as resistant Gram-negative bacilli or vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Koch complied with a vial swarming with cholera bacilli.

Cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria and typhoid bacilli were subsequently identified.

The investigation, by a team of microbiologists from Southampton University and published in the US journal mBio, found that bacilli such as listeria and salmonella remain completely active after chlorine washing.