“We know now that the more we look, the more we are going to find”, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. However, researchers are concerned that the colistin-resistant gene carried by the bacteria, known as mcr-1, could pass this trait to other bacteria that already demonstrate antibiotic resistant properties. But this sets the stage for that development, CDC officials said.
Advertisement
The infection was occurred in a 49 year-old woman from Pennsylvania who developed a urinary tract infection (UTI) with a mutant form of E. coli.
Colistin, which is the last defensive strategy against the most antibiotic-resistant bacteria, now seems to be decreasing in strength due to a transferable gene. It was thence found out that the condition could not be treated with the antibiotics. By the 1970s, doctors had mostly stopped using it because of its harsh side effects.
Infectious disease experts have warned for years that overuse of antibiotics is weakening the effectiveness of human defenses against harmful bacteria by creating bugs that are immune to drugs.
The study’s authors said the superbug itself had first been infected with a tiny piece of DNA called a plasmid, which passed along a gene called mcr-1 that confers resistance to colistin.
It has not been determined yet how the infection arrived in the US.
An alarming new discovery is causing concern in the medical community.. “They are able to develeop resistance to antibiotics unfortunately much more quickly than we are able to make antibiotics to kill those bacteria”.
According to the CDC, at least 2 million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year and at least 23,000 people die annually because of the infections. Frieden said that even though this is the first case in the U.S, they should expect to see more superbugs in the future.
She has not traveled outside the United States within the past five months, according to the study.
The woman had not travelled outside the country recently.
Doi said colistin resistance has been seen in China and Europe but not in the United States.
This is the first time a Colistin-resistant E.Coli strain has been found in the US.
Advertisement
The findings of the study was reported on Thursday in a study appearing in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.
