A new form of bacteria resistant to most antibiotics is spreading worldwide, scientists warned on Wednesday. Patients who have travelled to India for treatment should be screened for infection before receiving medical care on returning to their home countries, they said.
In an online article in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, Johann Pitout from the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Calgary called for close monitoring and surveillance to avoid an “emerging public health threat” likely to add significantly to the burden of treatment costs.
His comments accompanied a study led by Timothy Walsh at Cardiff University medical school in the same journal. The findings showed patients in the Indian subcontinent had a significant presence of a gene called NDM-1. It alters bacteria, making them resistant to most antibiotics, and it has spread to UK patients who had travelled or had links to India and Pakistan.
The findings will add to concern over the rapid spread of “superbugs” resistant to most forms of treatment, and deal a blow to the nascent trend of “medical tourism”, by which patients travel abroad to seek cheaper treatment or access to medical services refused in their own countries.
The study is published as European and US regulators, policymakers, researchers and pharmaceutical companies have been intensifying efforts to develop approaches to tackle drug resistance and stimulate the development of potent innovative treatments as evidence of the problem grows.
“The potential of NDM-1 to be a worldwide public health problem is great, and co-ordinated international surveillance is needed,” wrote Prof Walsh.
Other cases of the resistant bacteria apparently contracted in southern Asia have been reported in the US, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia.
Many public health authorities have been stepping up efforts to tackle the growth in superbugs, using rigorous hygiene. Techniques include isolating patients in hospitals who are suspected of harbouring drug-resistant bacteria while they are tested.
Doctors and patients have also been urged to use antibiotics more responsibly, to reduce the risk of resistance, and to reflect on better ways to encourage the development of new generations of drugs.
Politicians responded to efforts by the Swedish European Union presidency by ordering the European Commission at the end of last year to draw up an action plan. It would identify ways to help limit infections, which are estimated to cost more than €1.5bn and kill tens of thousands of patients each year across the EU.
