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'Indian' superbug hits Australia | Experts have revealed that a new bacterial gene resistant to antibiotics has been discovered in at least three Australian patients. This comes after the release of an international
study warning of the superbug's spread. In an article published in The Lancet,
researchers confirmed that the NDM-1 gene had been found in 37 British patients
after spreading from south Asia . The gene was first identified last year in a
Swedish patient who had been admitted to hospital in India . The researchers warned
the gene, which confers drug resistance on gut bacteria that can potentially cause
life-threatening pneumonia and urinary tract infections, could become a serious
global health problem. The study shows that the gene is widespread in hospitals
and probably the wider community in India , where contamination of drinking water
allows stomach bugs to be transmitted. Researchers identified about 150 patients
with the superbug after collecting samples from patients in hospitals in Bangladesh
, India and Pakistan . They also identified it in 37 British patients, some of
whom had travelled to India or Pakistan for surgery, including cosmetic surgery,
in the past year. A contributor to the study, University of Queensland researcher
David Paterson, said he knew of at least three cases of the gene in Australia
, including in a patient of Indian origin who visited Punjab late last year but
had not spent time in a hospital. Fellow infectious diseases specialist Professor
Peter Collignon, of the Australian National University , reported ''the first
Australian case'' of the gene in the Medical Journal of Australia last month,
in an Australian man in his late 50s who had had plastic surgery in India . The
Australian patients were treated in hospitals outside Victoria . ''Medical tourism
seems to be a growing market and Australia is part of that,'' The Age quoted Professor
Collignon as saying. ''What people need to realise is that if something goes wrong,
particularly if you get an infection ... countries to our north, such as China
and India , have lots of infections that are multi-resistant and there are little
or no antibiotics to treat them with,'' Collignon added. He said it was a concern
that the bugs also appeared to be carried in the water and food supply in developing
countries. |
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