Maryn McKenna

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Cost of Compassion: Drug Resistance in Military Hospitals

August 24, 2011 By Maryn Leave a Comment

Back in June, there was an unnerving report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that NDM-1, the “Indian supergene” that renders common hospital-acquired infections practically untreatable, had been found in the military hospital at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

The gene was being carried by a gut bacterium, Providencia stuartii, that was causing septicemia in an Afghan national who had been taken in by the military hospital. The particular strain of NDM-1 could be treated only by a single drug, aztreonam; it was resistant to everything else. Unsurprisingly, the victim died.

Though it wasn’t explicitly stated, the subtext of the CDC’s brief bulletin was clear: By extending compassion to the local resident (who was badly burned and had been treated at a hospital in Kabul), the military staff had brought into their hospital a highly resistant organism that could endanger their troops. It made me wonder, at the time, how often this happened, and what the consequences might be.

A study performed at Bagram, and published this month in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, supplies an answer, and it’s a troubling one.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Science, Science Blogs, Superbug Tagged With: Acinetobacter, gram negative, Military, Resistance, Science Blogs

NDM-1 in a U.S. Military Hospital in Afghanistan

June 9, 2011 By Maryn Leave a Comment

File under: Really not good news.

Deep in the back of the weekly bulletin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is a note that NDM-1, the “Indian supergene,” has been isolated from a patient in a U.S. military field hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan.

It’s been a few months since NDM-1 was in the news, so let’s recap. The acronym (for “New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1”) indicates an enzyme that allows common gut bacteria to denature almost all the drugs that can be used against them, leaving two or three that are inefficient or toxic. It was first identified in a resident of Sweden, of Indian origin, who had returned to India for a visit, was hospitalized there, went back to Sweden, and was hospitalized again.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Science, Science Blogs, Superbug Tagged With: Acinetobacter, gram negative, Military, NDM-1, Resistance, Science Blogs

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