Israel`s 1st superbug case reported from India-returned woman

Harinder Mishra
Jerusalem, Oct 27 (PTI) The 'superbug', impervious to
almost all known antibiotics and claimed to have emerged from
India, has been detected in Israel for the first time in a
woman who was recently hospitalised in New Delhi.
Doctors at the Sheba hospital near Tel Aviv said they
have detected signs of the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1,
commonly known as NDM-1, in the patient who was reportedly
hospitalised in New Delhi for five days after she fell sick.
Following the doctors' claim, Israel Health Ministry's
special unit for antibiotic-resistant infections has ordered
all hospitals to test any patient who had received healthcare
in India, since 2008.
"The patient was hospitalised for five days in New Delhi
and was transferred to Israel during the course of her
treatment," Professor Gila Rahav of the hospital's infectious
diseases unit, where the bug was discovered, said.
"She has been placed under strict quarantine and all the
departmental staff and other patients there have been tested
for the bug", Rahav said.
Months earlier, a medical journal 'Lancet' had claimed
the hospital-acquired superbug, which is similar to bacteria
commonly found in human intestine, cannot be treated using
existing drugs and is spreading from India to the rest of the
world.
The article created a controversy, with India denying
that foreigners treated in the country had developed immunity
to antibiotics due to indiscriminate use of drugs.
"The enzyme is found on a section of the stomach virus'
genetic matter, and it can disperse any medication that binds
to the virus, including penicillin and other antibiotics,"
Yehuda Carmeli, head of the Health Ministry's department for
control of epidemic diseases and head of the epidemiology unit
at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, told a newsdaily Ha'aretz.
"This resistant form of bacteria is very significant, as
once it has entered the body, it is almost impossible to
treat," Carmeli said adding, "as far as we can tell, it is
transmitted from person to person, which is why it was decided
to isolate the patient".
The health ministry said in a statement that it was well
equipped to deal with all forms of infection but advised
increased vigilance among medical staff. PTI