JOIN US“If this emerging public health threat is ignored, sooner or later the medical community could be confronted with carbapenem-resistant (bacteria) that cause infections, resulting in treatment failures with substantial increases in health-care costs,” Johann Pitout from the University of Calgary in Canada wrote in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal.
Multi drug-resistant bacteria are already a growing problem in hospitals across the world, marked by the rise of “superbug” infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus Aureus.
In fact, the bug was found attached to E.coli bacteria that cause urinary tract and respiratory infections, they say. It has “an alarming potential to spread.” The enzyme can jump easily from one bacterium to another and the scientists fear it will start attaching itself to more dangerous diseases causing them to become resistant to antibiotics, Daily Mail reported.
Walsh and his international team collected bacteria samples from hospital patients in Chennai and Haryana, and from patients referred to Britain’s national reference laboratory between 2007 and 2009.
They found 44 NDM-1-positive bacteria in Chennai, 26 in Haryana, 37 in Britain, and 73 in other sites in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Several of the British NDM-1 positive patients had recently travelled to India or Pakistan for treatment, including cosmetic surgery, they said.
Most worryingly, NDM-1-producing bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics, including carbapenems. A class of the drugs generally reserved for emergency use and to treat caused by other multi-resistant bacteria such as MRSA and C-Difficile.