Superbug spreads from India, reaches UK

A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it. Researchers said on Wednesday they had found the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase gene, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and Britain.

NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it. With international travel in search of cheaper healthcare increasing, particularly for procedures such as cosmetic surgery, Timothy Walsh, who led the study, said the superbug can spread.

“At a global level, this is a real concern,” Walsh, from Britain’s Cardiff University, said. “Because of medical tourism and international travel in general, resistance to such bacteria can spread around the world very, very quickly. There is nothing in the (drug development) pipeline to tackle it.”

Almost as soon as the first antibiotic penicillin was introduced in the 1940s, bacteria began to develop resistance to its effects, prompting researchers to develop new generations of antibiotics.

But overuse and misuse have helped fuel the rise of drug-resistant “superbug” infections like methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (MRSA).

In a study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal on Wednesday, Walsh’s team found that NDM-1 is becoming more common in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.