Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

'Superbug' Resistant To 26 Antibiotics Kills A Patient In Nevada (upi.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the immortal-infections dept.

An anonymous reader quotes UPI: A Nevada woman in her 70s who'd recently returned from India died in September from a "superbug" infection that resisted all antibiotics, according to a report released Friday... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "basically reported that there was nothing in our medicine cabinet to treat this lady," report co-author Dr. Randall Todd told the Reno Gazette-Journal. He's director of epidemiology and public health preparedness for the Washoe County Health District, in Reno... CDC testing subsequently revealed the germ was New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase -- a highly resistant form of CRE typically found outside the United States.

10 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. India by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Doctors learned the woman – whose name was withheld – had spent two years in India

    Well, there's you problem right there.

  2. India = a bad place for vacations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Years ago I knew a girl who was a fellow student in high school.
    She took a trip to India and came in contact with some awful pathogen which
    proceeded to destroy multiple organs and resulted in her death, despite the
    best available medical care in the US.

    India is still a filthy third world country, with raw sewage flowing in the streams and rivers.

    Given how many good, interesting, and quite safe places there are to travel in the world, you'd
    have to wonder why people want to go to a shithole like India.

    1. Re:India = a bad place for vacations by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. And I didn't seen any raw sewage floating in any bodies of water there, either.

      In Nevada, the raw sewage walks upright.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Scientists and doctors.. by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...have been warning us for decades and nobody cared to listen.

    Enjoy your new wave of death, humanity.

  4. Look to history by namgge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Time to start remembering how infection was controlled in the 30s and 40s before antibiotics came along. People from that generation were really keen on (a) quarantining, (b) keeping hospitals spotless and (c) cleaning even the smallest wound with iodine in alcohol. I still recall the stinging pain.

    1. Re:Look to history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      iodine is a shitty topical antiseptic (alcohol is fine).

      Really? Huh. I'll have to remember that the next time I scrub in with an iodine sponge. I'll let my colleagues know that they don't need to scrub the incision area with an iodine solution, 'cause it doesn't work. And when I get an exposure I'll not bother with the iodine scrub even though it is mandated by my oversight board.

      Seriously, iodine is a "shitty" topical antiseptic? Where do these people come from?

      Iodine is one of those super antiseptics that, when used properly, kills essentially everything, and quickly. Moreover, since it appears to attack structural elements of the cell, it has a radically different pathway to antimicrobial action than standard drugs, and one that is unlikely to engender resistance. It is not perfect, and perhaps that's what the parent poster is referring to (don't use it on really large wounds because it does get absorbed by the body, and your kidneys will not be happy; you might get a rash; etc.) but it has a far lower rate of allergic reaction than the standard alternative of chlorhexidine. It's also super cheap, and tends to sting heaps less than alcohol in an open wound.

  5. Re:Indians: if their food doesn't kill you, their by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Worst food poisoning I ever had was from a Hard Rock Cafe. By your logic, the US will only be safe when purged of Americans.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  6. Time to get serious by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reality is that most resistant strains of bacteria originate from antibiotics abuse, and the biggest abusers of antibiotics are third world countries and those who raise livestock. Normal un-resistant bacteria are actually more healthy vital and will grow and displace resistant strains because resistant strains are typically resistant due to the fact that they are missing receptors or features that antibiotics use to kill the bacteria. Those same features allow normal bacteria to be stronger and multiply faster than the resistant strains.

    What the doctors and scientists are only recently realizing is that the way to deal with resistant strains is that we must crack down on antibiotics abuse in these two areas globally, and greatly step up and enforce the use of post-antibiotic use of un-resistant probiotics, replenishing the healthy, easy to kill bacteria in people and farm animals which then come out in their waste/manure/fertilizer or sometimes on the meat/eggs/milk etc. and spread from there.

    I recall reading about a river in India where a pharmaceutical had been illegally dumping waste antibiotics and something like 90% of all bacteria tested in the river were resistant. The solution, after stopping the pollution, should have been to seed the river with a continuous stream of healthy un-resistant bacteria, and over time (maybe a year) the healthy, un-resistant bacteria would supplant the resistant strains 99% of the time, greatly reducing the odds of exposure to a resistant strain. We are just now discovering that regular old soil bacteria have over 40 different methods of killing off resistant bacteria that are completely new to us. We can and will convert some into new antibiotics, but we must learn from the past and minimize the spread of resistant strains of bacteria now by spreading as much as possible the un-resistant strains which will in turn supplant the resistant strains we have fostered around the globe with minimal additional human intervention.

    http://www.the-scientist.com/?...

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  7. Re:Think of it as evolution in action. by DivineKnight · · Score: 1, Insightful

    In other words, it's a clickbait article (but then, any article decrying the end of the world tends to be).

    Having RTFA (and some others, apparently), the bacteria in question is resistant the 26 antibiotics on the US shortlist of approved antibiotics (read that again, and think about what that means). Posthumously, they found that this strain is probably susceptible to fosfomycin (http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/nevada-woman-died-near-ultimate-superbug-n706641).

    What more, there are more than 26 antibiotics in existence...and all of you who believe this super-bug stuff need your heads examined.

  8. Re: Think of it as evolution in action. by omtinez · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I opened both links, even went to the actual CDC report (link: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum...) and there are exactly zero references for the bacteria coming from pigs. Try searching for the words "pig" and "farm". So much for lecturing others on reading TFA...