With most antibiotic-resistant superbugs, doctors have been able to rely on colistin, an antibiotic of last resort that can kill the unsafe bacteria.
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The patient visited a clinic on April 26 complaining of symptoms of a urinary tract infection, according to the study.
Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with other kinds of bacteria that can’t be beat with most antibiotics, and at least 23,000 people die each year as a result of those infections, according to the CDC.
“We risk being in a post-antibiotic world”, Reuters quoted the official as saying at the National Press Club in Washington.
“It’s another warning, not a death star, but a very strong warning that we really do have to be careful with antibiotics and use them optimally”, said Neil Fishman, an infectious disease doctor who is associate chief medical officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Dr. Tom Frieden, the director at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Washington Post this recent discovery of the first MCR-1 on E. coli in the United States has the potential to lead to one of these nightmare scenarios. This latest finding is much more worrisome because the mutation has arisen in a way that allows it to be easily shared with other bacteria.
Officials would not say where in the state the patient lives or provide details about her condition.
The CDC is working with Pennsylvania health officials to interview the woman and her family to try to figure out how she might have picked up the strain.
While experts have said that this case alone in Pennsylvania is not a cause for concern as it will be curable, the team worry that the antibiotic-resistant strain, called mcr-1, could move to other bacteria that could prove more fatal.
But while she has recovered, further testing completed in the last week confirmed that the E. coli was carrying a gene for resistance against the drug colistin. They are actually echoing remarks made in November when a study by researchers in China and the United Kingdom described a gene found in bacteria that makes them resistant to “last ditch effort” antibiotics.
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The woman reported no travel history within the prior five months, the report said, so the strain is unlikely to have been imported. “We have that genetic element that would allow for bacteria that are resistant to every antibiotic”. The USDA in particular found this type of bacteria in a pig’s intestines, but it isn’t now known where that pig originated from.
