In the United States, the first case of infection with a “last reserve” antibiotic resistant bacterium was found

On Thursday, officials from the US Department of Health reported on the first case of human infection with a new subspecies of E. coli-resistant E. coli recorded in the United States. Colistin is the “last reserve” antibiotic used only when all other drugs have failed. Doctors fear the proliferation of "superbugs", as they are called antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.

“We run the risk of being in a world where antibiotics are a thing of the past,” says Thomas Frieden, director of the American Center for Disease Prevention and Control. The patient is a 49-year-old woman with an infection of the urethra. She has not traveled outside the country for the past 5 months, which means that a microorganism resistant to antibiotics most likely appeared in the United States.
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Since the discovery of the first antibiotic penicillin in 1928, not many of their various types have been discovered. And each time after the discovery of a new type of antibiotic, at some point a microorganism appeared, which developed resistance to it due to the mechanisms of natural selection.

The last "legal", that is, approved, antibiotic is colistin. But it is usually not used to treat infections due to nephrotoxicity - the ability to have a toxic effect, manifested by kidney damage.

Over the past 25 years, physicians have discovered only one new antibiotic , teixobactin, and it has not yet passed clinical trials. The reasons for the slow progress in the development of new antibiotics are different - from economic inexpediency for pharmaceutical companies to slowing progress in this area due to copyright laws.

On the British Isles, biologists have already found several microorganisms that resist colistin. They appeared due to the recently discovered mechanism of gene transfer MCR-1. It is this mechanism, gene transfer by plasmids , that helped create a new "superbug" of E Coli in the USA.

Doctors report that it is now very critical to understand how the infection occurred in the identified case, and to what extent the identified parasites can be distributed, as well as assess the possible speed of their spread.

“This is very dangerous, we have to assume that [the microorganism] is able to spread rapidly, even in a hospital setting, if it is not carefully restricted,” says Dr. Gail Cassell, a microbiologist and teacher at Harvard Medical School.

The mcr-1 gene, which appears in microorganisms due to the mechanism of gene transfer MCR-1, was first discovered in China in November 2015. Resistance to colistin appeared in microorganisms, most likely due to the widespread use of this antibiotic on farms.

Whether we have already entered a disturbing post-antibiotic era or not is not yet known, but doctors still recommend thoroughly washing hands, fruits, vegetables, and carefully heat treating food.