New superbug spreads to UK hospitals

[n2doc]

By Joe Sinclair, Press Association

International travel and medical tourism helped the spread of drug-resistant bacteria that could lead to the end of antibiotics, scientists warned today.

A new gene, NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo---lactamase), emerged which allows bacteria to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, the scientists said.

NDM-1 spread in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

But it was also found in 37 patients from the UK, who travelled to India or Pakistan for medical procedures including cosmetic surgery, according to an article published in The Lancet.

"The potential of NDM-1 to be a worldwide public health problem is great, and co-ordinated international surveillance is needed," Timothy Walsh of Cardiff University and his international colleagues wrote.

more

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-superbug-spreads-to-uk-hospitals-2049347.html

[Warpy]

1. Well, so much for medical tourism to India

People can survive enteric bugs like the ones getting resistant to antibiotics with supportive treatment, it just takes a long time to recover. Now they're even talking about poo transplants to recolonize the gut with the bacteria that compete with the pathogens and keep us from getting infected with them unless our immune systems are screwed up by surgery and/or antibiotics. Both strategies can work well enough to allow most people to survive even serious infections, even though they're going to have to come up with a fancy medicalese name for the latter.

The bugs are fighting back and have done so for some time. Alternative strategies are going to have to be developed to control them again.