India rejects British scientists' new superbug claims
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India refuted a claim by British scientists that a new superbug resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics and could spread around the globe was from India, according to BBC report.
The Indian health ministry said on Thursday it was unfair to link the bug to India and officials described it as "malicious propaganda".
The "plasmid", associated with drug resistance to antibiotics, is present "in the environment, may be in the intestines of humans and animals universally," the health ministry said in a press release.
"We strongly refute the naming of this enzyme as New Delhi metallo beta lactamase," it added.
British scientists said patients who went to India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery have come back with bacteria that make NDM-1 enzyme.
NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems.
Experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it.
Timothy Walsh from Britain's Cardiff University said he feared the new superbug could soon spread across the globe with more people traveling to find less costly medical treatments, particularly for procedures such as cosmetic surgery.
In a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Wednesday, Walsh's team found NDM-1 is becoming more common in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and is also imported to Britain in patients returning after treatment.
Walsh's team found 44 NDM-1-positive bacteria in Chennai, 26 in Haryana and 73 in other sites in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, according to the Reuters report.
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