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More news is emerging about the dire new antibiotic resistance factor announced in November: MCR-1, a gene that disables the action of colistin, a very last-resort drug in human medicine.
Quick recap: A gene conferring resistance to colistin was found in pigs, retail meat, and human patients in China; then it was spotted in Malaysia; then in Portugal. Then, in the next major development, researchers in Denmark announced they had identified the gene in one human patient and five samples of imported meat.
Here’s the newest news: The Danish researchers tell me that they have identified another patient who was infected with a bacterium bearing that same resistance factor. And Public Health England has announced that it has found the gene in 15 stored bacterial samples in its databases: 10 Salmonella bacteria and three E. coli that came from hospitalized patients, and two Salmonella on a single sample of imported poultry meat.
The news is both alarming — more instances of this gene that creates resistance to last-ditch drugs, and that can transfer easily between bacteria — and also puzzling. The British samples were taken between this year and 2012. The Danish samples announced 10 days ago date back to 2012, and the newly discovered one comes from 2011. So the gene has been circulating for several years, without causing any outbreaks.
Read full, original post: More Countries Are Seeing a Last‐Ditch Antibiotic Failing
