Superbugs have existed elsewhere in the world, but until a 76 year-old man that was determined to have been infected by a superbug that was resistant to colistin as well as other major league antibiotics reserved to treat hard bacterial infections.
Advertisement
“It was completely an incidental finding”, stated Alexander Kallen, who is a medical officer for the CDC and reports antibiotic resistance in the country.
Although the mcr-1 gene was found, it wasn’t producing toxins.
Since this case, three other USA patients have been identified with bacteria carrying the mcr-1 plasmid. Tests showed the presence of the new superbug in her urine.
So far, there is no evidence linking any of the four USA human cases, Kallen said.
The third case, reported last month by Rutgers University scientists, found the resistance gene in an E. coli strain in a 76-year-old New Jersey man dating back to August 2014. It has also been found in hospitals, so it might be transmitted in that setting. The woman, who had been hospitalized multiple times in the time leading up to the discovery, was being evaluated for a possible urinary tract infection.
Drug-resistant diseases are a growing health concern all over the world, as health officials worry that simple medical procedures and routine operations might become more unsafe as these “superbugs” proliferate.
The bacteria did not also spread to anyone else, including those who are in close contact with the patient, but officials said they expect more cases to emerge in the country and recommended for improved surveillance for bacteria that are resistant to colistin. That would result in a kind of super-superbug, invincible to every lifesaving antibiotic available. It was another bacteria that caused the girl’s diarrhea, said Walters. Scientists do not know how this woman came into contact with the resistant bug, since she had not recently traveled internationally, had not come into contact with livestock and had played only a small role in preparing meals with store-bought groceries.
CDC and the Pennsylvania health department investigated her household contacts and the two medical facilities where she had frequent, extensive and prolonged interactions with health care personnel. Physicians later analyzed genes in the bacteria and found the superbug.
Investigators were not able to determine where she picked up her infection, but they tested more than 100 people but found no evidence it had spread to anyone else.
Advertisement
“These findings suggest that the risk for transmission from a colonized patient to otherwise healthy persons, including individuals with substantial exposure to the patient, might be relatively small”, wrote the CDC in a recent report on the case.
