MCR also found in sample collected from that of a slaughtered pig.
By Dileep Thekkethil
For the first time ever, doctors have found antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the body of a woman in the United States, which has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the drugs of last resort, reported National Geography.
According to the Department of Defense, the antibiotic resistance factor MCR protects bacteria against the antibiotics aimed at destroying it.
The research published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy deals with the curious case of a 49-year-old woman who was admitted to a medical care at a military associated clinic in Pennsylvania.
According to the research, other than in the women, MCR was also found in a sample collected from that of a slaughtered pig.
The woman was admitted to the hospital with a urinary tract infection and was reportedly carrying a strain of E. coli resistant gene called mcr-1 on a circular piece of DNA called a plasmid that resists a slew of drugs as it carried 15 different genes conferring antibiotic resistance, clustered on two “mobile elements” that can movie among bacteria.
Beth Bell, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said his department has begun working with the researchers and the Pennsylvania Department of Health to study how the woman came to be carrying the highly resistant bacterium.
“It is extremely concerning; this is potentially a sentinel event,” Bell said in a phone interview with National Geography. “There is a lot that needs to be done in terms of contact tracing and field investigation, to have a sense of who else might have been exposed or might be carrying this resistant bacterium,” he said.
He also added that the discovery of MCR in a slaughtered pig will be confirmed by the US Department of Agriculture shortly.
The existence of MCR was reported for the first time just last November, in a report by British and Chinese researchers who said they had found the gene in people, animals, and meat in several areas of China. Subsequently, it has been found in people, animals, or meat in at least 20 countries across the world.
MCR is making headline as it gives protection against colistin, the last remaining antibiotic that works against a broad family of bacteria that have already acquired resistance to all the other antibiotics used against them.