Drug-Resistant “Superbug” Bacteria Reaches US

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

From WashPo

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 U.S. 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. Defense Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. The authors wrote that the discovery “heralds the emergence of a truly pan-drug resistant bacteria.”

CDC officials are working with Pennsylvania health authorities to interview the patient and family to identify how she may have contracted the bacteria, including reviewing recent hospitalizations and other health-care exposures. CDC hopes to screen the patient and her contacts to see if others might be carrying the organism. Local and state health departments also will be collecting cultures as part of the investigation.

[DeanWinchester 41,390]

This doesn't sound good. And yet some people still fail to complete their antibiotic therapies once symptoms subside or continue to self medicate without sufficient proof of bacterial infection.

[LanasNerfGun 4,679]

[Seeka 12,372]

It may be the end of the road for some antibiotics, but not all. And it will lead us to reserch other ways of disease control.

 

Though we all know how someone gets e.coli.