Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Superbug will soon attack Hospitals?!

People in scrubs uniforms are alert nowadays because of the widespread news regarding NDM-1 or commonly known as the new "superbug".



NDM-1 bacteria is a newly-identified superbug that is spreading globally. The NDM-1 stands for “New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase” or New Delhi-Metallo-1 (NDM-1) named after the capital city of India, where it was first identified.NDM-1 gene has been found inside the E. Coli bacteria and Klebsiella pneumonia. This superbug is antibiotic-resistant and has the potential to become more devastating than the H1N1 Pandemic because it makes bacteria extremely resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most potent class called carbapenems, the kind of drug that is reserved for emergency use and treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bugs like MRSA and C-Difficile. However there are still two drugs that can stand up to carbapenem-resistant infections. These are colistin, an older antibiotic that has some toxic side effects, and Pfizer's Tygacil.




What caused NDM-1?


This superbug is said to be caused by the medical tourism especially those who have undergone cosmetic surgeries and international travel especially those who received recent medical care in India. And since this bacteria was spread by travel it has the possibility to spread very quickly not just in India, Pakistan and UK but even around the world.



What are its effects/symptoms?


The NDM-1 enzyme can lead to pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and blood infections. Health officials have revealed that the NDM-1 Bacteria can spread in person-to-person contact. E. Coli symptoms are diarrhea,abdominal cramps,nausea, and fatigue while Klebsiella pneumonia's symptoms are fever, chills, cough, dizziness, wheezing and urinary tract infection (UTI)



Who have high risk of being infected?


Those people who have recently been to India or Pakistan, those who have been in contact with someone who has recently traveled to India or Pakistan and those who have weakened immune systems.



What must be done?


The most effective way to get rid of this superbug is to make new kind of antibiotics that could cure NHM-1 infected patients however most drug companies have little interest in developing new antibiotics because they are not as profitable as other drugs, they are only taken for a few days, unlike drugs for high blood pressure, pain or cholesterol which are taken for long periods.So as for now we will settle for the answer that this superbug is not that curable by ordinary antibiotics. What we could only do is to prevent infection by avoiding those people who have high risk of being infected. Let's just settle for this however by any case that this bacteria will be widespread this could be another problem for the society, government, hospitals and the world itself.

0 comments (+add yours?)

Post a Comment