A superbug outbreak in South Asia has raised health concerns and fears of global implications, fueled by a report by an authoritative British Medical Journal.
* Superbug Claims First Fatality: Belgian Man Who Visited Pakistan
The superbug has claimed its first fatality, an unnamed Belgian man died who contracted the drug-resistant bacteria during a visit to Pakistan, AFP reports.
The Times of India reports that so far 37 people who have returned to the United Kingdom alone came down with the superbug after visits to Pakistan.
The superbug gene is also known as NDM-1, which stands for New-Delhi-Metallo. Researchers have suggested the superbug could potentially spread worldwide.
Its migration to Europe is not a good sign for efforts to contain it.
-Huffingtonpost
*LONDON — People getting cosmetic surgery in India have brought back to Britain a new gene that allows any bacteria to become a superbug, and scientists are warning this type of drug resistance could soon appear worldwide.
Though already widespread in India, the new superbug gene is being increasingly spotted in Britain and elsewhere. Experts warn the booming medical tourism industries in India and Pakistan could fuel a surge in antibiotic resistance, as patients import dangerous bugs to their home countries.
The superbug gene, which can be swapped between different bacteria to make them resistant to most drugs, has so far been identified in 37 people who returned to the U.K. after undergoing surgery in India or Pakistan.
The resistant gene has also been detected in Australia, Canada, the U.S., the Netherlands and Sweden. The researchers say since many Americans and Europeans travel to India and Pakistan for elective procedures like cosmetic surgery, it was likely the superbug gene would spread worldwide.
In an article published online Wednesday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, doctors reported finding a new gene, called NDM-1. The gene alters bacteria, making them resistant to nearly all known antibiotics. It has been seen largely in E. coli bacteria, the most common cause of urinary tract infections, and on DNA structures that can be easily copied and passed onto other types of bacteria.
Drug-resistant strain of E. coli emerges in U.S.
The researchers said the superbug gene appeared to be already circulating widely in India, where the health system is much less likely to identify its presence or have adequate antibiotics to treat patients.
-Msnbc
News in India (DNA)
City docs had warned of superbug in March
Indian doctors had warned earlier in the year about the multi-drug resistant superbug — months before the Lancet study that the government is condemning for scaremongering.
A team of researchers from Hinduja Hospital — including Payal Deshpande, Camilla Rodrigues, Anjali Shetty, Farhad Kapadia, Ashit Hedge, Rajeev Soman — in March warned that foreigners coming to India for cheap treatment could pick up the bacterium and spread it worldwide.
They came to the conclusion after noticing 22 instances of New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) in 24 patients between August and November last year. "This high number in a relatively short span is a worrisome trend that compromises the treatment options with carbapenems," they wrote in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) in March (carbapenems are a type of antibiotic used as a last resort against many multi-drug resistant infections)....click to continue reading
sources: huffingtonpost, msnbc, dna
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