New superbugs spreading from South Asia

[Statick]

New superbugs spreading from South Asia: study

Wed Aug 11, 4:06 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide, researchers reported Wednesday.

Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs thanks to a recently discovered gene that can jump across different species of bacteria.

This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria -- Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli -- in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.

Worryingly, the new NDM-1 bacteria are resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug resistant bugs.

In the new study, led by Walsh and Madras University's Karthikeyan Kumarasamy, researchers set out to determine how common the NDM-1 producing bacteria were in South Asia and Britain, where several cases had turned up.

Checking hospital patients with suspect symptoms, they found 44 cases -- 1.5 percent of those screened -- in Chennai, and 26 (eight percent) in Haryana, both in India.

They likewise found the superbug in Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well 37 cases in Britain, where several patients had recently travelled to India or Pakistan for cosmetic surgery.

"India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and it is likely that NDM-1 will spread worldwide," said the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

NDM-1 was mostly found in E. coli, a common source of community-acquired urinary tract infections, and K. pneumoniae, and was impervious to all antibiotics except two, tigecycline and colistin.

In some cases, even these drugs did not beat back the infection.

Crucially, the NDM-1 gene was found on DNA structures, called plasmids, that can be easily copied and transferred between bacteria, giving the bug "an alarming potential to spread and diversify," the authors said.

"Unprecedented air travel and migration allow bacterial plasmids and clones to be transported rapidly between countries and continents," mostly undetected, they said.

The emergence of these new drug-resistant strains could become a serious global public health problem as the major threat shifts toward a broad class of bacteria -- including those armed with the NDM-1 gene -- known as "Gram-negative", the researchers warn.

"There are few new anti-Gram-negative antibiotics in development, and none that are effective against NDM-1," the study said.

NDM-1 stands for New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1.

Johann Pitout from the University of Calgary in Canada said patients who have medical procedures in India should be screened for multi-resistant bacteria before they receive care in their home country.

[biloxifalcon]

Man, why does it seem like all this kind of ish comes from SOMPEPLACE else!? Or is it just my imagination? :mellow:

[Hammafan58]

Super Bug from Asia? HMMMMM.

[Statick]

Man, why does it seem like all this kind of ish comes from SOMPEPLACE else!? Or is it just my imagination? :mellow:

It does seem that a lot of these "bugs" tend to come from areas with high populations.

[biloxifalcon]

Super Bug from Asia? HMMMMM.

****, Mothra was a scary mofo when I was a lil' kid!

[BTL FED]

****, Mothra was a scary mofo when I was a lil' kid!

Scary? I thought Mothra was supposed to be a good guy?

[biloxifalcon]

Scary? I thought Mothra was supposed to be a good guy?

I guess you missed the lil' kid part?

[Andrews_31]

BTL FED, Mothra was a she, but she was always on the good side (side note: Godzilla roasted her pretty good in "Godzilla Final Wars")

The one I was scared of was Gamera (and he was friendly to children!! )

Scary? I thought Mothra was supposed to be a good guy?

[King ED]

I'm still waiting for my swine flu!

[biloxifalcon]

Stat, sorry ya thread got 'jacked man! Godzilla and the rest deserve their own thread though, the Japanese had that game down.

[Statick]

Stat, sorry ya thread got 'jacked man! Godzilla and the rest deserve their own thread though, the Japanese had that game down.

Meh. I don't really care. As long as you guys are having fun.

But don't blame me when your jimmys are falling off due to NDM-1. -_-

[Testasparo]

zomg swine flu returnith.

[Guest Regular Guy]

I thought this was about some hopped up VWs!!

[deacon]

There are a lot of resistant strains of bacteria that emerge from southeast Asia. We (CDC) have seen a new resistant stain of gonorrhea that is currently spreading across the US. It originated in southeast Asia and took hold in Hawaii and is now spreading to the mainland.

The biggest culprit is the black market antibiotic trade that is prevalent in southeast Asia. With the overwhelming availability of brothels etc in Asia many of the workers are treated for infections with black market meds and most often attended by non medical persons. The result, a whole lot of people being undertreated or treated using expired and less potent forms of the original drugs.

With bactium such as Staphylococcus and gonorrhea it is very easy for them to develop an immunity to a drug if they are exposed to levels that are not adequate to kill them.

Unless some new family of drugs comes out soon we will soon reach the day where you will have to be hospitalized and treated intravenously to get rid of gonorrhea. Just in the 20 years that I have worked at CDC we have had to stop using 2 families of drugs because of gonorrhea developing resistance to them and that strain becoming prevalent enough to abandone use of those drugs as viable treatment.

[biloxifalcon]

There are a lot of resistant strains of bacteria that emerge from southeast Asia. We (CDC) have seen a new resistant stain of gonorrhea that is currently spreading across the US. It originated in southeast Asia and took hold in Hawaii and is now spreading to the mainland.

The biggest culprit is the black market antibiotic trade that is prevalent in southeast Asia. With the overwhelming availability of brothels etc in Asia many of the workers are treated for infections with black market meds and most often attended by non medical persons. The result, a whole lot of people being undertreated or treated using expired and less potent forms of the original drugs.

With bactium such as Staphylococcus and gonorrhea it is very easy for them to develop an immunity to a drug if they are exposed to levels that are not adequate to kill them.

Unless some new family of drugs comes out soon we will soon reach the day where you will have to be hospitalized and treated intravenously to get rid of gonorrhea. Just in the 20 years that I have worked at CDC we have had to stop using 2 families of drugs because of gonorrhea developing resistance to them and that strain becoming prevalent enough to abandone use of those drugs as viable treatment.

Gonorrhea that can only be cured intravenously? Wow, ish like that makes herpes sound almost tame.

[Rodak]

Gonorrhea that can only be cured intravenously? Wow, ish like that makes herpes sound almost tame.

You gotta wrap it, before you tap it. :P

[Statick]

You gotta wrap it, before you tap it. :P

I dunno. Sounds like it could eat through it.

[Flip Wilson]

I dunno. Sounds like it could eat through it.

A lot of STDs are transmitted through the mucus at the base of the ***** anyway so condoms do very little to prevent them. The Dr. that just did my vasectomy asked what I was currently doing to keep from impregnating my wife and I said, "Condoms". He asked my if I knew who uses condoms. I said, "Who?". He said,"future parents".

[Guest Regular Guy]

BTL FED, Mothra was a she, but she was always on the good side (side note: Godzilla roasted her pretty good in "Godzilla Final Wars")

The one I was scared of was Gamera (and he was friendly to children!!)

Michael Jackson had another name? :P