The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has recommended the antibiotic Tygacil to treat hospital infections.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Scotland | Drug approved to battle superbug
Some 70% of the bacteria that cause hospital infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic.
Unlike vancomycin and existing drugs for hospital infections, it is given once a week.
Professor Dilip Nathwani, consultant physician at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, said the drug would help to fight hospital infections.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Scotland | Drug approved to battle superbug
Diseases such as antibiotic-resistant hospital infections and genital herpes have become hot targets.
The BCC said patients should recognise their own role in tackling hospital infections.
The UK has one of the highest levels of hospital infections in Europe.
But ViroPharma, a small Pennsylvania company, is developing a nontoxic strain of Clostridium difficile to help treat hospital infections.
Deaths from preventable hospital infections each year exceed 100, 000, more than those from AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined.
Innovative hospitals are showing they can drastically cut medication errors and all but eliminate some deadly hospital infections by consistently applying known steps.
But she said it was important to remember hand hygiene was still the most effective measure in combating the spread of hospital infections.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the government had "dithered and delayed" on hospital infections and only hit the target by "moving the goalposts".
Nearly 2 million patients get hospital infections (of a total 35 million stays), and two-thirds of them have infections that resist at least one drug.
The number of deaths from two hospital infections, MRSA and Clostridium difficile, has fallen between 2010 and 2011, according to figures for England and Wales.
Staphylococcus aureus is the bug responsible for many hospital infections, and scientists are worried that some strains were acquiring high levels of resistance to virtually every available antibiotic.
This, they said, was contributing to hospital infections such as C. difficile and MRSA, and was a particular problem in geriatric wards, as bugs "spread more quickly between elderly patients".
The Department of Health said it was "not true" that the changes have delayed healthcare improvements because "the NHS continues to deliver low waiting times, and the best ever record on hospital infections".
Premier pathogen causes 102, 000 hospital infections a year.
Simply requiring hospitals to report their infections has forced them to be more accountable to their patients, says Lisa McGiffert, who heads Consumers Union's Stop Hospital Infections campaign, which among other things has pushed for more transparency.
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The news is not surprising - it is already well established that bacteria can be transmitted this way - but the focus on MRSA bacteria has prompted calls for further work to establish how significant this could be in the fight against hospital infections.
It has called for data collection on how many patients are affected by hospital acquired infections to be improved.
The equivalent of two large hospitals are full everyday of people with hospital acquired infections, new research has revealed.
"As long as this situation continues, it will undermine efforts to successfully combat hospital acquired infections, " said health spokesman Norman Lamb.
MSPs also approved the health secretary's programme for tackling hospital acquired infections.
Recent reports from the National Audit Office "graphically illustrated" the need for improved information about equipment, bed management and hospital acquired infections, said the Tory MP.
Ten thousand patients die each year from hospital acquired infections.
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Each year, hospital-acquired infections sicken about 1.7 million and kill 99, 000 people in the United States.
Reducing hospital-acquired infections and other avoidable health-center acquired conditions through rigorous reporting and transparency.
Dr Andrew Walker, an expert in health economics at Glasgow University, highlighted the problem in a report on hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).
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