Resistant to Last-Resort Antibiotics

(UK) A group of researchers in the United Kingdom tested samples of water collected in New Delhi, India, to determine the types and prevalence of infectious bacteria, in particular, drug-evading bacteria.

From scores of samples of tap water, puddle water and sewage, more than a dozen nasty bugs were found.

The research exposes the role played by India, a booming economy with more mobile-phone subscribers than toilets, in fanning the development of drug-evading bacteria.

As 30 million people fly out of the country annually, some are leaving with bowel-dwelling bugs that may cause deadly sepsis and defeat the most powerful antibiotic treatments.

“There is not even a light you can see at the end of this dark tunnel,” said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases doctor who teaches at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“People are dying from infections that are no longer treatable with available antibiotics.”

The researchers, led by Timothy Walsh of Cardiff University in Wales, collected 171 swabs from some of the drains that line New Delhi’s streets and 50 samples of public tap water in September and October.

The samples were tested in the U.K. to identify the bacteria they contained and whether the germs had a gene known as NDM-1, which makes them resistant to a class of antibiotics-of-last resort known as carbapenems.

"Resistant to last-resort antibiotics" is an ominous collection of words. Also, "more mobile-phone subscribers than toilets" is interesting but not surprising. Arguably, humans more often make a call than feel a call.