'Superbug resistant to antibiotics could spread'

Scientists have warned that a new superbug, called New Delhi-Metallo-1, which is resistant to antibiotics, has reached Britain and could spread worldwide as nothing is being developed to combat it. There have been 37 cases in Britain mainly among patients who have had surgery or other treatments in foreign countries, the scientists wrote in the latest edition of the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. In fact, the bug was found attached to E.coli bacteria that cause urinary tract and respiratory infections, they say, adding it has "an alarming potential to spread". The enzyme can jump easily from one bacterium to another and the scientists fear it will start attaching itself to more dangerous diseases causing them to become resistant to antibiotics, the Daily Mail reported.

Professor David Livermore, from the Health Protection Agency, who co-wrote the research with Professor Timothy Walsh from Cardiff University, said: "The NDM-1 problem is likely to get progressively worse in the foreseeable future. "The potential for wider international spread and for NDM-1 to become endemic worldwide are clear and frightening."

A team of experts has, in fact, tracked the enzyme in Britain, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and believes it to be more widespread than first thought. It is said to be resistant even to a class of antibiotics known as carbapenems, which are reserved for use in emergencies and used when bacteria are found to be resistant to more commonly prescribed antibiotics. Worryingly, there are only two antibiotics that work against NDM-1 and the likelihood is that they will also be overcome before long.

Professor Walsh said: "In many ways, this is it. This is potentially the end. There're no antibiotics in the pipeline." Even if scientists started work immediately on discovering new antibiotics against the threat, he added, there will be nothing available soon. "We have a bleak window of maybe ten years, where we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely, but also grapple with the reality that we have nothing to treat these infections with. It is the first time it has got to this stage with these type of bacteria," he said.