ESKAPE outbreak puzzle

Culture Code

Outbreak samplesRound 1 of 10

How to play

Five samples from a hospital outbreak have grown bacteria. Work out which ESKAPE pathogen is in each sample, in ten rounds or fewer.

Tap a bug to put it in the next dish, then tap Check. Each round gives you one peg per bug:

Right bug in the right sample
Right bug in the wrong sample
No match

The pegs are not in dish order, so you have to work out which bugs they refer to.

Each outbreak also gives you three lab tests. Tap a covered sample to test it. The lid then shows which bugs still fit.

Lab tests

Bug	Gram stain	Catalase	Oxidase	Motile

Bold marks a result that only one of the six gives. Hospital labs now often identify bacteria by mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF), but these quick tests are still the classic first steps.

ESKAPE stands for Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter species.