The ‘nightmare’ superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the US – IOTW Report

The ‘nightmare’ superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the US

Stuff.co.nz: For the first time, researchers have found a person in the United States carrying bacteria resistant to antibiotics of last resort, an alarming development that the top US public health official says could mean “the end of the road” for antibiotics.

The antibiotic-resistant strain was found last month in the urine of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman.

Defence Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published by the American Society for Microbiology.

The authors wrote that the discovery “heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria.”

Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly dangerous types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as CRE, which health officials have dubbed “nightmare bacteria.”

In some instances, these superbugs kill up to 50 percent of patients who become infected.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has called CRE among the country’s most urgent public health threats.

It’s the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States.

In November, public health officials worldwide reacted with alarm when Chinese and British researchers reported finding the colistin-resistant strain in pigs, raw pork meat and in a small number of people in China.

The deadly strain was later discovered in Europe and elsewhere.  MORE

7 Comments on The ‘nightmare’ superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the US

  1. “The ‘nightmare’ superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the US”
    __________________________________________

    Liberalism is the ultimate superbug, and it’s been here for a lot longer of a time and has done irreversible damage to the grey matter of the average US citizen.

  2. Most likely this disease came in with a foreigner. INA 212(a)(1) bars admission to anyone with a communicable disease. Why was this person let in the first place? Oh wait, let me guess – would it be – Diversity?

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