Researchers have developed a potential treatment for the so-called “nightmare” superbug that contributed to deaths in a Los Angeles earlier this year.

The UK research involves a molecule called an inhibitor to prevent the superbug Klebsiella. Klebsiella has been dubbed the “nightmare” superbug because it kills up to half the people infected by causing severe pneumonia.

The researchers found that Klebsiella can survive inside white blood cells called "macrophages," which protect the human body from infection.

The superbug takes over a protein in the blood cell called "Akt," paralyzing the cell and making it a shelter to avoid being killed by antibiotics.

Treating the cell with the inhibitor restored its bacteria-killing capability, enabling the infection to be eliminated, they said.

An outbreak of the superbug was reported in a Los Angeles hospital in February, when five people were infected by a tainted medical scope during endoscopic procedures. Two of the patients died and 174 people were believed exposed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in 2013 that the superbug was spreading. The agency estimated then that about 4 percent of U.S. hospitals and 18 percent of long-term care facilities had at least one patient with CRE the previous year and that the infection had been seen in 42 states in the past 10 years.