According to a new report in the journal The Lancet, a dangerous type of bacteria that’s resistant to nearly all known antibiotics was found. 37 patients in the UK with the new infection were found, and it’s believed that medical tourism is what’s brought this infection. Most of the people with the new resistant superbug had traveled to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh for medical procedures, including cosmetic surgeries. The infection was also found in dozens of patients from Asia.

Photo by kaibara87

The bacteria in question aren’t new. Their names are E. coli (a germ known to cause gastrointestinal infections and urinary tract infections), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (also known to cause urinary tract infections). What is new is the fact that these bacteria have a new gene making them resistant to almost all antibiotics. That gene was named NDM-1 (or, by its long name, New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase) and it lets the bacteria create an enzyme (a sort of machinery) that destroys antibiotics.

What’s important to understand is that once antibiotics were invented they were considered “wonder drugs” and doctors started using them like water years ago. With time it was found that bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics, a fact which led doctors to use them more sparingly. That is, if they know what they’re doing. Probably, the centers in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were less developed in that area.
Now, with globalization, the superbugs have begun spreading. They are widespread in south Asian medical centers, and have also been spotted in Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US.

A hope?
It turns out there is hope, after all. The bacteria do respond to an old antibiotic called colistin, which has a lot of side effects, and so hasn’t been used much in the last 30 years or so.
Now what?
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructed doctors to isolate patients found to be infected with the new strain from other patients.
Experts in the area don’t recommend on panicking just yet. They claim that since those germs devote so much energy to develop their drug resistance, not much is left to prosper and cause significant diseases.
Now it’s just left to see how things develop, and if these superbugs turn to be a worldwide pandemic, or just a minor threat, like swine flu turned out to be.

Here’s a news video summing it up:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1axIgJ1VC0

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