Resistance Is Fatal

Resistance Is Fatal: "If compassion isn't reason enough for global policymakers to fund safe drinking water, sanitary conditions and decent healthcare in the developing world, perhaps self-interest will be. A deadly supergene, New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), has emerged. It produces an enzyme that helps bacteria withstand even the most powerful of antibiotics. The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning of 'a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics,' in which antibiotic resistance will turn common infections into incurable killers and make routine surgeries a high-risk gamble. 'The speed of transfer [is] unparalleled,' Mark Toleman, co-author of a Lancet Infectious Diseases article, told Deutsche Welle, referring to the gene's ability to pass between different bacteria. It has already spread to 16 countries, affecting 14 different species of bacteria, including those that cause pneumonia, cholera and dysentery, making them potentially untreatable. Only two antibiotics are somewhat effective, and both are toxic and expensive. Researchers in Sweden traced the gene to New Delhi in 2008 after a man returning from India was felled by a resistant infection. They found that NDM-1 had contaminated 4 percent of the Indian capital's drinking water samples and 30 percent of drain samples. The U.S. Institute of Medicine describes this new…

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