Superbug appears in Japan

Sep 07, 2010 |

Tokyo, Sept. 6: Japan on Monday said it has detected its first case of an antibiotic-resistant “superbug” that surfaced in South Asia and has triggered a global health alert.

A hospital linked to the Dokkyo Medical University in Tochigi prefecture north of Tokyo detected a drug-resistant “superbug”, a bacterium carrying the New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) gene, in a patient last year, a hospital official said.

The case follows a warning from the World Health Organisation last month calling on global health authorities to monitor the drug-resistant superbug that is believed to have spread from India also mentioned in The Lancet.

“A patient who came home from India, in his 50s, had fever symptoms while he was hospitalised in May last year, and after a blood test the hospital detected an antibiotics-resistant bacterium,” the official said, adding that the patient fully recovered.

After examination doctors found that the bacterium contained the NDM-1 gene, making it difficult to treat with standard drugs, he said.

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