telegraph - The new bug is resistant to almost all antibiotics and there are none in development which can combat it meaning it is likely to spread worldwide, according to international experts.
There have been 37 cases in Britain and scientists writing in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases warn it has an 'alarming potential to spread and diversify'.
New Delhi-Metallo-1 (NDM-1) has been found in bacteria carried by patients travelling from Asia after cosmetic surgery, cancer treatment and transplants and returning to Britain for further care. It's found in E.coli bacteria that cause urinary tract and respiratory infections.
NDM-1 is a gene that causes the bacterium to create an enzyme and this enzyme destroys powerful antibtiocs.
The enzyme-creating gene can easily jump from one bacterium to another and experts fear it will start attaching itself to more dangerous diseases causing them to become resistant to antibiotics.
The new bug is even resistant to the class of antibiotics known as Carbapenems which are reserved for use when all other antibiotics have failed.
The Daily Telegraph highlighted last year how the bug had then been found in 22 patients in Britain and government scientists had issued an alert to hospitals to test for it and limit its spread.
Now an international team of experts have tracked NDM-1 in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Britain and found the disease is more widespread than previously thought.
Between 2007 and 2009 they found there had been 37 patients in Britain with the disease.
Co-authors of the research, Prof Timothy Walsh from Cardiff University, and Prof David Livermore, from the Health Protection Agency, wrote in the paper: "The NDM-1 problem is likely to get substantially worse in the foreseeable future....
"The potential for wider international spread and for NDM-1 to become endemic worldwide, are clear and frightening."
Antibiotics are available to buy without prescription in many countries in Asia and this is thought to have encouraged resistance to develop as many infections are exposed to the drugs without being properly killed.
The team found NDM-1 carried by young women with urinary tract infections but not other illness and in patient who are vulnerable after having kidney transplants and cancer treatment.
A victim of a road traffic accident in India developed an infection with NDM-1 in the bones of his fractured foot and another was infected in their wound after a 'tummy tuck' operation.
Prof Livermore said: "These are not bacteria that are historically very harmful to humans but medicine has got better at keeping people alive with conditions that would normally have killed them and they can be exploited by these bacteria.
"The risk is that you have an enzyme with very major resistant and if it combined with a particularly nasty bacterium, then that would be a concern."
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New 'Superbug' Found in UK Hospitals
A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn.
They say bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery.
Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global.
Tight surveillance and new drugs are needed says Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The fear would be that it gets into a strain of bacteria that is very good at being transmitted between patients”
End Quote Dr David Livermore Researcher from the HPA
* Q&A: NDM-1 superbugs
NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like E.coli, 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.
And experts fear NDM-1 could now jump to other strains of bacteria that are already resistant to many other antibiotics.
Ultimately, this could produce dangerous infections that would spread rapidly from person to person and be almost impossible to treat.
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. Continue reading at New 'Superbug' Found in UK Hospitals
New NDM-1 Superbug Resistant To Almost All Antibiotics
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