NDM-1 superbug has arrived in the city

20 of 885 patients tested by Sassoon hospital found infected by antibiotic-resistant bug controversially named after Indian capital, says dean of govt healthcare facility

NDM-1 superbug has arrived in the city

20 of 885 patients tested by Sassoon hospital found infected by antibiotic-resistant bug controversially named after Indian capital, says dean of govt healthcare facility

THE NDM-1 superbug has reached the city. So far 20 patients from Sassoon General Hospital have shown the presence of the multi-drug-resistant superbug. Shocking as it may sound, the presence of the New Delhi metallobeta lactamase-1 (NDM-1) superbug in the city is a fact that has been confirmed by the seniormost authority at the hospital.

Revealing study: Dr Renu Bharadwaj, dean of Sassoon and head of the
microbiology department,u00a0 conducted the study on the patients.
Pic/Jignesh Mistry

The superbug, the naming of which created much controversy in recent months with Indian authorities taking exception to the New Delhi in it, is known to make bacteria resistant to even the most high-end antibiotics, making it difficult to treat infections.

Patients who get infected with this superbug do not have very bright chances of survival, say experts. Even as last week New Delhi was rocked by a new controversy with Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit vehemently denying the presence of NDM-1 strains in the water there as reported by the reputable international journal Lancet, researchers in Sassoon were putting the final touches to their report on the NDM-1 positive samples.

Dr Renu Bharadwaj, dean of Sassoon and head of the microbiology department that conducted the study, said it was true that 20 patients had shown presence of the NDM-1 strain in the past two months.

"We collected 3,172 blood and urine samples of patients suffering from various diseases and sent it to the National Centre of Cell Science (NCCS) for testing. Of these, 885 had gram negative bacteria and about a fifth of these were resistant to very high level of antibiotics," said Bharadwaj.

Further testing revealed that 20 of these samples had the NDM-1 gene. NDM-1 is an enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to a broad range of antibiotics of the carbapenem family, a high-end antibiotic that is used in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The search for the presence of NDM-1 bacteria started a few months ago when an international journal named a superbug after New Delhi, claiming that it was first detected in a Swedish patient who had returned from the Indian capital after treatment. The Centre had taken strong objection to the naming of the bug after the Indian capital at the time.

Recently, Lancet published another article in which it claimed that NDM-I strains were present in Delhi's water supply, which was denied by the Delhi Government.

Doctors at Sassoon hospital tied up with Yogesh Shouche, senior researcher at NCCS, to find out if NDM-1 strains were present in the city, in a project that has been on for many months.

"The article is in the final phase of being accepted in an international microbiology journal. We also want to prove that India isn't the only country and similar superbugs have been found in 28 other countries," Bharadwaj said. The Sassoon dean refused to give details of the health or survival of the 20 patients found infected by NDM-1, stating that she would provide such details after a week.

Antibiotics abuse
Two weeks ago, MiD DAY had reported that, according to the Sassoon hospital microbiology department's annual data, new superbugs were likely being created because of the abuse of antibiotics by patients. Of 2,500 samples studied for antibiotic resistance, 66 per cent had shown multi-drug-resistance, while one in four samples showed resistance to the highest level of antibiotics. Experts said these alarming figures pointed to a near possibility of the creation of such superbugs, which no available antibiotics can beat. You can read the report 'World Health Day: Are we creating new superbugs?'