USA health officials on Thursday reported the first case in the country of a patient with an infection resistant to all known antibiotics, and expressed grave concern that the superbug could pose serious danger for routine infections if it spreads.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the 49-year-old infected patient sought medical care last month due to a urinary tract infection.
The presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the USA – which many experts have called inevitable after other strains were discovered in Europe years earlier – will likely force healthcare providers nationwide to begin seeking treatments other than antibiotics for infections.
Agricultural use of a last-resort antibiotic should be cut by two-thirds to limit the spread of risky drug resistance, European medicine regulators said on Thursday.The demand for strict curbs on giving colistin to animals is the latest in a string of warnings about antimicrobial resistance.
Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly risky types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as CRE, which health officials have dubbed “nightmare bacteria”.
NEW YORK, N.Y. – For the first time, a USA patient has been infected with bacteria resistant to an antibiotic used as a last resort treatment, scientists said Thursday. In November, public health officials worldwide reacted with alarm when Chinese and British researchers reported finding the colistin-resistant strain in pigs, raw pork meat and in a small number of people in China.
Just over a year ago, President Obama released a National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria. The gene is transferrable to other bacteria, which could worsen the current global crisis of antimicrobial resistance.
Near-untreatable cases of diarrhea, sepsis, pneumonia and gonorrhea are infecting millions more globally, the World Health Organization says. Many acquire mutations in their own genomes that allow them to withstand antibiotics, although that ability can’t be shared with pathogens outside their own family.
The study said continued surveillance to determine the true frequency of the gene in the United States is critical.
It’s used against hard-to-treat bacteria that resist one of the last lines of defence, antibiotics called carbapenems.
But the tests showed this E. coli was resistant to antibiotics commonly used first for such infections.
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Late previous year, as part of a broader budget deal, Congress agreed to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal agencies engaged in the battle against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
