Is there a new Superbug threat?
Reports of the arrival in the U.S. of a new superbug that is resistant to an antibiotic of last resort have set off alarm bells among public health officials. Last year, a team led by Northeastern professor Kim Lewis discovered teixobactin, an antibiotic that eliminates bacteria without encountering any detectable resistance. We asked him to explain the new superbug, how worried we should be, and how it might be stopped.
The new superbug, which was found last month in the urine of a woman from Pennsylvania, is an Escherichia coli bacterium that carries a gene called mcr-1. It has been found to confer resistance to the antibiotic colistin—often the only treatment left for people infected with a lethal family of bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control, has called CRE “nightmare bacteria.”–News@Northeastern Article by Thea Singer
Read more about this here: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2016/06/how-serious-is-the-threat-posed-by-new-superbug/
