New Drug Resistant Bacteria Fears
Another form of bacteria that is resistant to Canadian drugs is raising fears and microbiologists are calling for extra screenings of Canadians who have been in hospital in the United States and other countries such as Greece and Israel.
Klebsiella pneumoniae (otherwise known as KPC) is resistant to Canadian drugs antibiotics and has already killed an Ontario woman in 2008 and been reported in several other cases. As with another recent Canada drug resistant strain of bacteria, the New Delhi superbug, tourism is the worry here – although even more so in the case of KPC, as it is so rampant in the United States.
“It’s a real clinical problem in certain areas,” believes microbiologist Robert Bonomo. “The genetic elements KPC is carried in have become very mobile throughout parts of the Middle East and the US Northwest, and early reports suggest a higher attributable mortality.”
Health authorities in Europe have already implemented nationwide screening of patients when they have previously been hospitalized in areas where the Canada drug resistant bacteria is known to be rife, and Patrice Nordmann, the director of France’s national antibiotic resistance laboratory INSERM 914, recommends that Canada do the same. “The state infection control agencies have jumped on it,” he says. “It first spread in the northeastern part of the US and (they) did not get it under control. I had no difficulties to convince the French Ministry of Health to screen all patients admitted abroad for all carbapenemases… You should not wait until you have an American style problem.”
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