SuperbugsSecond U.S. patient infected with superbug resistant to antibiotics of last resort

Published 30 June 2016

Scientists announced earlier this week that a second American patient has been infected with a superbug which is highly resistant to antibiotics of last resort. “We are very close to seeing the emergence of enterobacteria that will be impossible to treat with antibiotics,” said Lance Price of George Washington University.

Scientists announced earlier this week that a second American patient has been infected with a superbug which is highly resistant to antibiotics of last resort.

Syracuse.com reports that virologists found the rare mrc-1 gene, which causes the resistance, in a strain of E coli from a patient in New York, according to findings published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

We are very close to seeing the emergence of enterobacteria that will be impossible to treat with antibiotics,” said Lance Price of George Washington University.

The first U.S. case of human infection with the gene-carrying E coli bacteria occurred in May, in a 49-year-old patient hospitalised in Pennsylvania with a urinary tract infection. She has since recovered.

The Telegraph reports that the mrc-1 gene is especially dreaded because it makes bacteria resistant to colistin, the antibiotic of last resort for such infections.

The gene, located on a small fragment of microbial DNA, can move from one bacteria to another across several species, potentially spreading resistance to all antibiotics, which authorities see as a catastrophe scenario (see “Pennsylvania superbug infection could mean “the end of the road” for antibiotics: Researchers,” HSNW, 27 May 2016).

Syracuse.comnotes that scientists have been tracking the gene’s movements around the globe since its discovery in humans, pigs, and poultry in China in 2015.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month established a network of labs which would respond quickly to antibiotic-resistant superbugs in the United States.