Govt surprised over UK scientists linking bug to India

Government today expressed surprise at scientists in the United Kingdom linking a new superbug resistant to antibiotics to India and said that it was drafting a reply to an alert issued by Britain in this regard.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), a nodal agency under the Health Ministry, is meeting today and "we would soon draft a reply to this," Secretary, Health Research, V M Katoch told PTI.

He said the ministry will examine the issue in detail but it was "unfortunate that this new bug, which is an environmental thing, has been attached to a particular country which is India in this case".

"I am surprised," he said, adding that, "this (the bug) is present in nature. It is a random event and cannot be transmitted".

Katoch said that he was surprised that a research paper

linked it with India as they should know it was a biological phenomenon.

According to a paper published in scientific journal 'Lancet, the new superbug, which is said to be resistant even to most powerful antibiotics, has entered UK hospitals and is travelling with patients who had gone to countries like India and Pakistan for surgical treatments.

Bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 or New Delhi-Metallo-1, have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery, it said.

Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global.

NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like Ecoli, and it makes them resistant to one of the most powerful groups of antibiotics - carbapenems.
       
These are generally reserved for use in emergencies and to combat hard-to-treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bacteria.
       
At least one of the NDM-1 infections the researchers analysed was resistant to all known antibiotics.
       
Similar infections have been seen in the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands and international researchers say that NDM-1 could become a major global health problem. Infections have already been passed from patient to patient in UK hospitals.
       
Dr David Livermore, one of the researchers and who works for the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA), said, "There have been a number of small clusters within the UK, but far and away the greater number of cases appear to be associated with travel and hospital treatment in the Indian subcontinent".

The Department of Health has already put out an alert on the issue, he said.