https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28633-resistance-to-last-resort-antibiotic-has-now-spread-across-globe/
Quote
The last drug has fallen. Bacteria carrying a gene that allows them to resist polymyxins, the antibiotics of last resort for some kinds of infection, have been found in Denmark and China, prompting a global search for the gene.
The discovery means that gram-negative bacteria, which cause common gut, urinary and blood infections in humans, can now become “pan-resistantâ€, with genes that defeat all antibiotics now available. That will make some infections incurable, unless new kinds of antibiotics are brought to market soon.
Colistin, the most common polymyxin, is a last-resort treatment for infections with bacteria such as E. coli and Klebsiella that resist all other available antibiotics.
In November, Yi-Yun Liu at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou and colleagues discovered a gene for resistance to colistin in infected livestock, meat and humans. The mcr-1 gene can pass easily between bacteria, and the researchers predicted it could soon go global.
In circulation
Unknown to them, it already had. After their announcement, Frank Aarestrup of the Danish Technical University in Lyngby immediately searched for the sequence in a Danish database of bacterial DNA sampled from people, animals and food. He found it in one person who had a blood infection earlier this year, and in five bacterial samples from poultry meat imported from Germany between 2012 and 2014.
The poultry could have been raised outside Germany, says Aarestrup â€" he doesn’t know its origin. But ominously, all the bacteria also carried genes conferring resistance to many other antibiotics, including penicillin and cephalosporins.
The genes found in Denmark and China are the same, says Aarestrup, suggesting mcr-1 has travelled, rather than arising independently in each place. It is thought to have emerged originally in farm animals fed colistin as an antibiotic growth promoter.
Livestock origin
The gene has not yet been found in North America, says Lance Price of George Washington University in Washington DC, but researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, are now checking genetic databases. One reason for its absence could be that North American livestock farmers use relatively little colistin â€" although that will not keep the gene from migrating among bacteria.
“We do not now know where in the world it originated,†Aarestrup cautions. His team is now trying to get some idea by collecting information and different strains via existing global and European Union research projects that compile genetic sequences from pathogens.
An origin in China seems most probable as antibiotics are widely fed to animals to promote growth. The bulk of the 12,000 tonnes of colistin fed to livestock yearly around the world is used in China, say Liu and colleagues, which would favour the evolution of mcr-1. Antibiotic growth promoters have been banned in Europe precisely because they promote drug-resistant bacteria. Denmark, ironically, was among the first to ban them.
Worldwide concern
The drugs are still heavily used, however, to treat infections common in crowded livestock barns, such as diarrhoea. In 2012, the World Health Organization called colistin critically important for human health, meaning its use in animals should be limited to avoid promoting resistance. Yet in 2013, the European Medicines Agency reported that polymyxins were the fifth most heavily used type of antibiotic in European livestock.
Colistin is used in both humans and animals in India, says Abdul Ghafur of the Apollo Hospital in Chennai. The country is another hotbed of antibiotic resistance because of weak controls on the drugs. “I have treated colistin-resistant infections,†Ghafur says, and researchers in India plan to test bacterial samples for the gene.
“If mcr-1 is present in India then that will be a disaster,†says Ghafur, who fears it will spread as fast as did genes for resistance to another antibiotic of last resort, carbapenem.
Further proof of God's undying (cough) love.
Yes ... if G-d loved us, aspirin would be sufficient ... or even just chewing willow tree bark. (not sarc).
But this is a good example of unplanned meddling in global systems that we don't understand. It is possible, even without technology, that humanity would be exterminated in a pandemic. But for those who haven't seen it ... "13 Monkeys" is an informative movie. When dealing with nature, when you try to force things your way, they often blow up in your face.
Let's hope there are some individuals who create antibodies with an efficient resistance to these strains - whether in a lab or randomly in a given human population. If not, then there will a time of great dying.
And this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3346440/Superbug-resistant-antibiotics-reaches-Europe-Danish-patient-infected-untreatable-form-salmonella-probably-Britain.html
QuoteSuperbug resistant to ALL antibiotics reaches Europe: Danish patient becomes infected with untreatable form of salmonella that is 'probably already in Britain'
The patient's current state of health cannot be disclosed, scientists say
But they fear this is the start of a global epidemic of untreatable infections
Announcement comes just weeks after Chinese academics discovered superbugs had breached last line of antibiotic defences for the first time
QuoteExperts last night said they were alarmed at the findings, and called for urgent restrictions of the use of colistin drugs among animals.
Dr Price said: ‘We must act swiftly to contain the spread of colistin-resistant bacteria, or we will face increasing numbers of untreatable infections. Leaders from every nation should immediately implement a ban on the use of colistin in animal agriculture.’
Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association said: ‘This represents a significant milestone in the growth of antibiotic resistance in Europe and is a worrying step towards a future where the simplest of infections routinely become life-threatening.
‘Professionals from across the medical community need to work together to drastically reduce prescription rates of these life-saving drugs to ensure that they continue to work for those who need them most and that patient safety is no-longer compromised by careless overuse of antibiotics.’
Professor Neil Woodford, head of Public Health England’s antimicrobial resistance unit, said: ‘Public Health England is aware of the reports of a new colistin resistance gene from China and Denmark.
‘However, people should be reassured our current assessment is that the public health risk is very low.’
Science vs nature? We'll see.
QuoteAn origin in China seems most probable as antibiotics are widely fed to animals to promote growth. The bulk of the 12,000 tonnes of colistin fed to livestock yearly around the world is used in China, say Liu and colleagues, which would favour the evolution of mcr-1. Antibiotic growth promoters have been banned in Europe precisely because they promote drug-resistant bacteria. Denmark, ironically, was among the first to ban them.
QuoteColistin is used in both humans and animals in India, says Abdul Ghafur of the Apollo Hospital in Chennai. The country is another hotbed of antibiotic resistance because of weak controls on the drugs.
Goddammit. This is exactly why we need to be very, very, very careful in how we use antibiotics instead of just going crazy with the stuff.
Quote from: Aletheia on December 07, 2015, 10:53:26 PM
Let's hope there are some individuals who create antibodies with an efficient resistance to these strains - whether in a lab or randomly in a given human population. If not, then there will a time of great dying.
True ... but hope isn't scientific. And per micro-evolution, nature will out invent germs faster than we can kill them. We are not the master here, nature is.
Stromboli ... science fiction isn't true. A conscious being can not, on principle, understand consciousness. A biological being can't escape the consequences of its own biome. You cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I have claimed that humans are gods ... but not that they are intelligent gods ;-)
Quote from: Hydra009 on December 07, 2015, 11:08:45 PM
Goddammit. This is exactly why we need to be very, very, very careful in how we use antibiotics instead of just going crazy with the stuff.
Hydra009 ... notice that ... we are too late! This usually involves domestic animals, particularly those raised commercially in hellish conditions. This is why we have mad cow disease ... because bioethics can't get ahead of corporate greed.
Sigh... with so many who do not believe evolution is real here in the U.S., it's going to be a real pain to convince them that overusing a medication can actually push germs to evolve a resistance. I tried explaining horizontal gene transfer to some average acquaintances and they had the "cow watching a passing train" sort of vacant stare. We are so doomed.
I think we're better off raising the creationists as Eloi and using them as a food source, much like the Morlocks did. Got to reclaim all those valuable resources somehow.
Baruch, mad cow disease is a prion disease, which is completely different from bacteria.
Yes, I know what a prion is. But the disease (not the prion) wouldn't have happened, if we hadn't been feeding cows, dead cows. If you think that is ethical, go to the nearest funeral home and eat some dead people ;-) In fact in New Guinea, this does happen ... because of the custom of eating the brains of your dead relatives ... and the relative small sizes of their communities. But the fact is, per capitalism, we have to get the most profit from the most rotten food. Now this is funny ... ideally we should be concerned not to act out micro-aggressions against the chickens ... otherwise they might be spurred to sick their campus lawyer on us ;-)
I have one response to this
Fuck
Quote from: GrinningYMIR on December 08, 2015, 12:37:58 AM
I have one response to this
Fuck
Unfortunately, that is usually the rational response. But I am not saying, this is an Agenda 21 conspiracy ... or madmen acting out an alternative script for Thirteen Monkeys. Fortunately I don't think that any microbe can tolerate bleach, microevolution or not. Clean with more bleach ... tactically ... and you can probably control most cases of salmonella etc. And don't put shit in your mouth, in trusting hope that multinational corporations are looking out for you. In overusing antibiotics ... we have ruined a useful tool, but not the only one we have.
Because of human agricultural practice, there are only two commercially edible varieties of banana ... and the first one is already extinct, and the second one will be gone shortly. No doubt there will be scientists at Chikita developing a banana with eel genes as we speak ... but that doesn't mean it will taste good ... even if it can survive the fungus among-us.
Most of the bacteria that have been discussed in Western countries are the kind you get in hospital wards from surgery, but that's changing too.
It will be a sad day in the world of sex when HIV is no longer the scariest thing you can contract just for the simple reason that we can treat HIV. There's a strain of gonorrhea going around the UK that's resistant to almost everything they throw at it. No cases of totally pan resistant syphilis have been found, but it's probably only a matter of time.
The believed they found a strain of pan resistant tuberculosis in India a few years back.
We are literally staring down the barrel of the year 1800, but I suppose there should be a small comfort that at least now we know not to rub mercury on people's chests to cure syphilis or alleviate "the consumption" by smoking and breast milk.
Drug discovery advances onward. Don't panic!
Quote from: Mermaid on December 08, 2015, 08:14:05 AM
Drug discovery advances onward. Don't panic!
Well, yes and no. Antibiotics aren't money makers for pharmaceutical companies. What company wants to invent a product that costs potentially billions in research and development that works best when it's used sparingly? Congress has tried sparking interest by offering financial incentives, but the pace of antibiotic development is slower than it should be. As Dr. Dennis Maki once famously indicated the problem isn't the antibiotics, it's us, when he said, "The development of new antibiotics without having mechanisms to insure their appropriate use is much like supplying your alcoholic patients with a finer brandy."
I always thought drug resistant strains of bacteria were inevitable. But I don't have the certainty that drugs to kill the new strains are also inevitable.
@baruch; nobody said shit about science fiction, so once again you are extrapolating from your own interpretation, not mine.
There are other ways to combat bacteria and so on including ultraviolet light- used to purify water- and other approaches yet tried. I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity. It has worked before, it can work again. Given a serious enough problem, we have come up with solutions. Survival of the species is a fairly strong incentive.
I have that faith too. The biggest problem is the time it takes to create a new effective drug. In the case of a global pandemic, a lot of death can occur before a control can be found and utilized. My hope is that this threat of pandemic will turn out to be a bigger scare than a reality. This has occurred enough times in my recent past to suggest this particular one might be the same. But evolution works to the advantage of all species, including bacteria. It's very "inventive" and comes up with surprising ways for any species, including bacterial species to survive, often at the expense of others.
Quote from: TomFoolery on December 08, 2015, 09:12:58 AM
Well, yes and no. Antibiotics aren't money makers for pharmaceutical companies. What company wants to invent a product that costs potentially billions in research and development that works best when it's used sparingly? Congress has tried sparking interest by offering financial incentives, but the pace of antibiotic development is slower than it should be. As Dr. Dennis Maki once famously indicated the problem isn't the antibiotics, it's us, when he said, "The development of new antibiotics without having mechanisms to insure their appropriate use is much like supplying your alcoholic patients with a finer brandy."
Capitalism and medicine don't mix ... but Fox News bots will never understand that. Free medicine for all ... is beyond affordability ... but PBS bots will never understand that.
Quote from: SGOS on December 08, 2015, 12:49:25 PM
I have that faith too. The biggest problem is the time it takes to create a new effective drug. In the case of a global pandemic, a lot of death can occur before a control can be found and utilized. My hope is that this threat of pandemic will turn out to be a bigger scare than a reality. This has occurred enough times in my recent past to suggest this particular one might be the same. But evolution works to the advantage of all species, including bacteria. It's very "inventive" and comes up with surprising ways for any species, including bacterial species to survive, often at the expense of others.
Correct ... nature works out things ... but not necessarily one where humans survive ... or where symbiosis or mutualism is superior to parasitism. the Aids virus is a very stupid virus, because it kills its victims ... example of stupid creationism. The common cold is a very smart virus, because it doesn't kill its victims. Random mutation can go either way, it usually produces creatures less adapted, not more adapted. More adapted species occur over much longer time scales.
Quote from: TomFoolery on December 08, 2015, 09:12:58 AM
Well, yes and no. Antibiotics aren't money makers for pharmaceutical companies. What company wants to invent a product that costs potentially billions in research and development that works best when it's used sparingly? Congress has tried sparking interest by offering financial incentives, but the pace of antibiotic development is slower than it should be. As Dr. Dennis Maki once famously indicated the problem isn't the antibiotics, it's us, when he said, "The development of new antibiotics without having mechanisms to insure their appropriate use is much like supplying your alcoholic patients with a finer brandy."
My company does.
Quote from: Mermaid on December 09, 2015, 06:46:14 PM
My company does.
Skype call. Now. I want to work in your job!
(You don't have to Call... just tell us a bit more some time. And no I will not take your job away from you.)
:3