Plagues, Pestilences and Diseases
6 April 2011 Last updated at 22:57 EST
Europe 'losing' superbugs battle
By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant infections has reached
unprecedented levels and now outstrips our ability to fight it
with existing drugs, European health experts are warning.
Each year in the EU over 25,000 people die of bacterial infections
that are able to outsmart even the newest antibiotics.
The World Health Organization says the situation has reached a
critical point.
A united push to make new drugs is urgently needed, it says.
Without a concerted effort, people could be dealing with the
"nightmare scenario" of worldwide spread of untreatable
infections, says the WHO.
One example is the New Delhi or NDM-1 superbug recently found in
UK patients.
They brought the infection back with them from countries like
India and Pakistan, where they had visited for medical treatment
and cosmetic surgery.
Becoming untreatable
These superbugs are resistant to carbapenem antibiotics, which is
concerning for experts because they are some of our most powerful
weapons and are used for hard-to-treat infections that evade other
drugs.
“Given the growth of travel and trade in Europe and across the
world, people should be aware that until all countries tackle
this, no country alone can be safe” - Zsuzsanna Jakab WHO
regional director for Europe
The Cardiff University researchers, who made the discovery last
August, now say bacteria with this new genetic resistance to
antibiotics have contaminated New Delhi's drinking water supply,
meaning millions of people there could be carriers.
Dr Timothy Walsh and his team collected 171 swabs of seepage water
and 50 public tap water samples from sites within a 12km radius of
central New Delhi between September and October 2010.
The NDM-1 gene was found in two of the 50 drinking-water samples
and 51 of 171 seepage samples.
Worryingly, the gene had spread to bacteria that cause dysentery
and cholera, which can be easily passed from person to person via
sewage-contaminated drinking water.
"Oral-faecal transmission of bacteria is a problem worldwide, but
its potential risk varies with the standards of sanitation.
"In India, this transmission represents a serious problem… 650
million citizens do not have access to a flush toilet and even
more probably do not have access to clean water," the researchers
warn in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The scientists are calling for urgent action by health authorities
worldwide to tackle the new strains and prevent their global
spread.
Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, said:
"Antibiotics are a precious discovery, but we take them for
granted, overuse and misuse them: there are now superbugs that do
not respond to any drugs.
"Given the growth of travel and trade in Europe and across the
world, people should be aware that until all countries tackle
this, no country alone can be safe."
The UK's Health Protection Agency said it was monitoring the
spread of NDM-1 closely.
"The first case of a bacterial infection with this resistance was
identified in January 2008. Monitoring of this resistance began in
2009 as more cases were identified."
So far, there have been around 70 cases of the infection recorded
in the UK.
The HPA insists that the risk of infection to travellers to the
Indian subcontinent who are not treated in hospital is minimal.
"If members of the public are travelling for surgery overseas they
should satisfy themselves that appropriate infection control
measures are in place," says the HPA.