No Antibiotic Could Take Down this “Nightmare Bacteria”

The woman in Nevada was cared for in isolation; the staff who treated her used infection control precautions to prevent spread of the superbug in the hospital. But after a raft of tests found that it was resistant to all antibiotics now available for use in the United States, the patient eventually succumbed to septic shock and died.

The patient developed septic shock and died in early September, the CDC said.

Reports that a US woman has died of an infection immune to virtually every antibiotic doctors could throw at it is adding to growing concerns medicine is losing its standoff with superbugs.

The case is making national headlines because scientists have been anxious for years about bacteria mutating into drug-resistant strains. Washoe County Health District spokesman Phil Ulibarri said the superbug case wasn’t publicized at the time because it posed no threat to the public. “They don’t now because we can treat them [with antibiotics]”.

News reports that the Nevada woman was in her 70s, and tests showed that she was battling a risky mutation of bacterial group known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE).

But nothing stood up against the aggressive bacteria.

Director of the CDC Tom Frieden has previously described carbapenem-resistant enterobacteria (CRE) as “nightmare bacteria”. Moreover, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s antimicrobial testing revealed that the bacteria are even resistant to all aminoglycosides, another last-resort antibiotic called polymixins and even tigecycline which is an antibiotic developed specifically to overcome drug-resistant organisms.

CRE include common bacteria such as E.coli and Klebsiella bacteria. The patient was diagnosed with carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae that had a New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM), an enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to many antibiotics, The Telegraphreported.

Meanwhile, the patient’s condition was deteriorating quickly. “Patients with underlying illnesses present a certain kind of challenge”. In effect, the germ “was resistant to all available antimicrobial drugs”, they said.

While this recently reported case is frightening, it is also unusual.

The woman had visited India numerous times over the past few years and was hospitalized for a bone infection after being treated previously for a broken right femur.

But doctors say this case should be sending up a giant red flag over the development of new infections that can’t be controlled by the antibiotics now available.

Healthcare experts say American doctors often prescribe the drugs as a matter of patient satisfaction because many Americans believe antibiotics to be a completely safe medical cure-all.