Superbugs' gene could pose worldwide problems
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by Aimee Keenan-Greene
A new study in the journal Lancet says the NDM-1 gene has been found in drinking water and seepage samples in New Delhi, India.
The NDM 1 gene, which creates what medical experts call an antibiotic resistant "super superbug", has spread to germs that cause cholera and dysentery, and is circulating freely in bacteria in the Indian capital of 14 million people, Reuters reports.
According to the study, swabs of seepage water in streets and samples of public tap water were collected from sites within a 12 km radius of central New Delhi, with each site photographed and documented by researchers.
Samples were transported to the UK and tested for the presence of the NDM-1 gene, blaNDM-1, by PCR and DNA probing.
Scientists say from Sept 26 to Oct 10, 2010, 171 seepage samples and 50 tap water samples from New Delhi and 70 sewage effluent samples from Cardiff Wastewater Treatment Works were collected.
They detected blaNDM-1 in two of 50 drinking-water samples and 51 of 171 seepage samples from New Delhi; the gene was not found in any sample from Cardiff.
Bacteria with blaNDM-1 were grown from 12 of 171 seepage samples and two of 50 water samples, and included 11 species in which NDM-1 has not previously been reported, including Shigella boydii and Vibrio cholerae.
Carriage by enterobacteria, aeromonads, and V cholera was stable, generally transmissible, and associated with resistance patterns typical for NDM-1; carriage by non-fermenters was unstable in many cases and not associated with typical resistance.
20 strains of bacteria were found in the samples, 12 of which carried blaNDM-1 on plasmids, which ranged in size from 140 to 400 kb. Isolates of Aeromonas caviae and V cholerae carried blaNDM-1 on chromosomes. Conjugative transfer was more common at 30°C than at 25°C or 37°C.
"We would expect that perhaps as many as half a million people are carrying NDM 1-producing bacteria as normal (gut) flora in New Dehli alone," researcher Mark Toleman of Britain's Cardiff University School of Medicine told Reuters. They also report, no new drugs are on the horizon for at least 5-6 years to tackle NDM-1.
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