In a dire warning to the global community scientists have identified a new strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is rapidly spreading around the world, including to the United States. Unlike MRSA, which starts mostly in American hospitals, this infection if coming from Pakistan and India, being transported by travelers, and easily spreads in the community. The information is published online in the Lancet.
Scientists have identified a new gene that easily inserts itself into bacteria. They have named the gene NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase). It is carried on a small section of DNA called a plasmid that readily transfers from bacteria to bacteria. Once NDM-1 is taken up by bacteria they are resistant to almost all current antibiotics, and there are no drugs in the pipeline designed to treat this type of infection.
In just three years the problem has grown from being rare in India, to now existing in 1-4 percent of the common gut bacteria of the entire population of India. That gut bacteria is a common strain of hundreds of species that natural inhabit your digestive tract called Enterobacteriaceae, of which potentially infectious E.coli is a member. It is also commonly found in the Klebsiella pneumoniae infection, the typical cause of bacterial pneumonia.
"It is absolutely staggering," said Professor Tim Walsh of Cardiff University, who discovered the gene. "Because of international travel, globalization and medical tourism, [the gene] now has the opportunity to go anywhere in the world very quickly…This heralds a new and darker dawn in infections….The crux of the matter is that when bugs acquire this type of gene they become resistant to all beta-lactams. And beta-lactams like penicillin are the main therapies to treat these infections with…We must, must, must consider antibiotic resistance as a global problem. It is not just in India. This is a prime example how if it starts in one country, it can spread massively throughout the globe."
There could be "serious consequences," says Johann D.D. Pitout, MD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Canada's University of Calgary, in an editorial accompanying the Walsh report in the August 11th 2010 online issue of The Lancet.
"The potential is there for a major issue: that we would have common infections, like urinary tract infections, caused by drug-resistant organisms," Pitout tells WebMD. "It is a huge surprise to see it spread all over the subcontinent. It looks like it is a really rapid spread. It is too early to tell. But it sure as hell is widespread and that is very worrying."
The U.K. has confirmed 29 cases of NDM resistant infection in people traveling from India and Pakistan, especially common if they had any medical procedures in those countries. Several cases have been identified in the U.S., but our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have no idea of the current magnitude of the problem — this is all breaking news.
What these scientists are saying is that other than a last-ditch desperate cocktail of antibiotics, the medical community has no ability to treat what is likely to become a common world-wide health problem over the next decade.
Your health is in your hands. Work diligently to improve your digestive health, overall energy level, fitness, and avoid dietary junk. I would go out of my way to avoid GMO food, which may have played a role in the rapid spreading of this digestive infection in India (I have no proof at this time – just theory). India has been a major location of GMO experimentation by Monsanto. The gene swapping potential in this highly inflammatory type of "food" is a public health disaster that has been condoned by a corrupt FDA working in tandem with a company it should actually be regulating.
The era of antibiotics as a medical tool is rapidly coming to a close, and with it the failed paradigm of the toxic treatments of Western Medicine. A new dawn in health care is rising from the ashes of the naturally-minded eclectic physicians who perished in battle a century ago. It will be based on self-health, personal knowledge, and taking effective actions.
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