LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) An antibiotic-resistant superbug that originated in India has been found in a remote part of the world by a group of researchers that includes a University of Kansas geology professor.
Jennifer Roberts, chair of KUs Department of Geology, participated in a 2013 study of the soil in Svalbard, Norway, that found the superbug that originated in New Delhi, India. She told the Lawrence Journal-World that the detection of the superbug a microorganism, or microbe, that is resistant to modern prescription medicine in a remote area was surprising, especially for how quickly it got there.
The group expected to find no antibiotic-resistant microbes, but instead found 131. Finding the 131 of the microbes itself was not that surprising, as the antibiotic-resistant microbes can occur naturally in the wild, Roberts said.
What did surprise the group was a specific, human-made microbe in the bunch blaNDM-1 which was first discovered in New Delhi in 2008, she said.
(It) has pretty broad resistance to a whole bunch of different antibiotics, and thats why microorganisms that can uptake that gene we call superbugs, she said. Most of the developed antibiotics we have just arent going to work that well.
In other words, if an infectious bacteria such as E. coli picked up that microbe and then infected a person, a doctor would not be able to prescribe effective medicine to cure the persons illness, she said.
How the superbug traveled to that remote area is still a scientific mystery, but Roberts said the researchers working theory is bird migration. She said the study found indicators that the microbe traveled from either human or animal waste.
