<p>All three confirmed US cases - in Massachusetts, California and Illinois - involved people who had received medical care in India.<br /><br />A person infected with the 'superbug' was treated earlier this year at Massachusetts General Hospital and isolated, a move that helped prevent the germ from spreading.<br /><br />The patient had recently travelled from India. The Illinois patient too recovered, and there is no evidence the infection was transmitted to other people.<br /><br />The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Massachusetts patient survived, as did the only other two US patients with infections.<br /><br />All three patients developed urinary tract infections that carried a genetic feature that made their cases harder to treat.<br /><br />The superbug, also known as NDM-1 -– short for New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase -– allows bacteria to escape some of the strongest antibiotics available.<br /><br />"It leaves treating physicians with few treatment options," the Boston Globe quoted Alex Kallen, a CDC medical officer, as saying.<br /><br />All three of the US patients had been in India, and two underwent medical procedures in hospitals while they were there, Kallen said.<br /><br />The patient treated in Boston was an Indian citizen with cancer who had undergone surgery and chemotherapy in that country before coming to Massachusetts, Kallen added.<br /><br />Cases of NDM-1 infections have been reported in Asia, Europe and Canada. Experts have said the threat posed by the germs in the US is most acute in hospitals.<br /><br />"They don't cause infection in people walking down the street," said Dr Alfred DeMaria, top disease tracker for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.<br /><br />"If somebody is in an intensive care unit on a ventilator with a tube in their trachea, they are at risk for these organisms. If someone has had extensive abdominal surgery with lots of open wounds, they are at risk."<br /><br />Only two antibiotics possess a measure of effectiveness against bacteria riddled with NDM-1, doctors said: an old drug called colistin, and tigecycline.<br /><br /></p>
<p>All three confirmed US cases - in Massachusetts, California and Illinois - involved people who had received medical care in India.<br /><br />A person infected with the 'superbug' was treated earlier this year at Massachusetts General Hospital and isolated, a move that helped prevent the germ from spreading.<br /><br />The patient had recently travelled from India. The Illinois patient too recovered, and there is no evidence the infection was transmitted to other people.<br /><br />The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Massachusetts patient survived, as did the only other two US patients with infections.<br /><br />All three patients developed urinary tract infections that carried a genetic feature that made their cases harder to treat.<br /><br />The superbug, also known as NDM-1 -– short for New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase -– allows bacteria to escape some of the strongest antibiotics available.<br /><br />"It leaves treating physicians with few treatment options," the Boston Globe quoted Alex Kallen, a CDC medical officer, as saying.<br /><br />All three of the US patients had been in India, and two underwent medical procedures in hospitals while they were there, Kallen said.<br /><br />The patient treated in Boston was an Indian citizen with cancer who had undergone surgery and chemotherapy in that country before coming to Massachusetts, Kallen added.<br /><br />Cases of NDM-1 infections have been reported in Asia, Europe and Canada. Experts have said the threat posed by the germs in the US is most acute in hospitals.<br /><br />"They don't cause infection in people walking down the street," said Dr Alfred DeMaria, top disease tracker for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.<br /><br />"If somebody is in an intensive care unit on a ventilator with a tube in their trachea, they are at risk for these organisms. If someone has had extensive abdominal surgery with lots of open wounds, they are at risk."<br /><br />Only two antibiotics possess a measure of effectiveness against bacteria riddled with NDM-1, doctors said: an old drug called colistin, and tigecycline.<br /><br /></p>