U.S. detects "nightmare bacteria" resistant to last-resort antibiotic

The U.S. government on Thursday reported the first detection in the country of a "nightmare bacteria" that cannot be killed by the last-resort antibiotic called colistin.

The bacteria were discovered in a 49-year-old woman from Pennsylvania, who sought care at a local clinic for symptoms of a urinary tract infection one month ago, according to a report published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Biologic samples were sent to the U.S. Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for testing, which revealed the existence of a strain of E. coli with the so-called mcr-1 gene that confers resistance to colistin.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of mcr-1 in the USA," the report said." (This discovery) heralds the emergence of truly pan-drug resistant bacteria."

The woman reported no travel history within the prior five months, the report said, so the strain is unlikely to have been imported.

In addition, a search for colistin-resistant bacteria in food animals, retail meats and people by U.S. government agencies also found colistin-resistant E. coli in a single sample from a pig intestine, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Speaking at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, D.C., Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for "a very comprehensive job of protecting antibiotics so we can have them and our children can have them."

Colistin "was an old antibiotic but it was the only one left for what I call nightmare bacteria," Frieden said. "It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently."

The mcr-1 gene in bacteria that confer colistin resistance was only first reported last November by scientists in China.

Following that revelation, scientists across the globe began searching for other bacteria containing the mcr-1 gene, and the bacteria have since been discovered in Europe and Canada. Endi