Tag Archives: Colistin-Resistant E Coli

A ‘slow catastrophe’ unfolds as the golden age of antibiotics comes to an end

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http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-antibiotic-resistance-20160711-snap-story.html

Rosslyn Maybank

In early April, experts at a military lab outside Washington intensified their search for evidence that a dangerous new biological threat had penetrated the nation’s borders.

They didn’t have to hunt long before they found it.

On May 18, a team working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research here had its first look at a sample of the bacterium Escherichia coli, taken from a 49-year-old woman in Pennsylvania. She had a urinary tract infection with a disconcerting knack for surviving the assaults of antibiotic medications. Her sample was one of six from across the country delivered to the lab of microbiologist Patrick McGann.

Within hours, a preliminary analysis deepened concern at the lab. Over the next several days, more sophisticated genetic sleuthing confirmed McGann’s worst fears.

There, in the bacterium’s DNA, was a gene dubbed mcr-1. Its presence made the pathogen impervious to the venerable antibiotic colistin.

Superbug gene detected in a second person in the U.S.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/07/11/superbug-gene-detected-in-a-second-person-in-the-u-s/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8uNmEmwwUG1vB6aWRtwXfQdBo_rxN0ZbP2Z7U_lywUgo6QUrJKB5yjM0Y_0ZZoKwGCKxfZRBKs-t8lfLoJoLE5NCnJmg&_hsmi=31540667&utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&utm_content=31540667&utm_medium=email&utm_source=hs_email

Researchers have found bacteria resistant to the antibiotic of last resort in a sample from a second patient in the United States, according to a study published Monday. The patient had surgery at a New York hospital last year, researchers said.

The news comes after researchers reported in late May that a patient in Pennsylvania carried a strain of E. coli bacteria that was resistant to colistin, the antibiotic that doctors use to treat patients who have infections that don’t respond to other drugs.

In both cases, the bacteria carried a gene, known as mcr-1, that allows the organism to withstand colistin. The Pennsylvania case was the first time this colistin-resistance gene had shown up in the United States after its identification in China last fall. Health officials and infectious-disease experts around the world have sounded the alarm because the gene has since been found in more than two dozen countries, in animals as well as people.

The End of Antibiotics? Drug-Resistant Superbug Reaches the US

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http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/05/26/End-Antibiotics-Drug-Resistant-Superbug-Reaches-US?utm_campaign=541c47950e351dbe08037e5f&utm_source=boomtrain&utm_medium=email&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJjNmQ1ZmRkOC03N2RkLWFjOWUtZWQyZC0zYmZmN2E3ODZjZjcifQ%3D%3D

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.”