A superbug resistant to “last-resort” antibiotics has made its way into the food supply

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A superbug resistant to “last-resort” antibiotics has made its way into the food supply
June 13, 2014
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Source: Salon

A dangerous “superbug” has made its way into the North American food supply for the first time, Canadian researchers announced Wednesday. Routine testing of raw squid, imported from South Korea, revealed a strain of bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a class of antibiotics used to treat life-threatening infections.

This is concerning because carbapenems are a “last resort” antibiotic, one doctors turn to when common antibiotics fail. Health officials have been watching them closely; in April, the World Health Organization warned that antibiotic resistance had become a serious, global threat to public health, listing the spread of carbapanem resistance as a main reason for that.

Carbapanem-resistant bacteria have been detected in the environment and in animals used for food, but this is the first time they’ve been found in food itself. That raises the stakes considerably, Joseph Rubin, assistant professor of veterinary microbiology at the University of Saskatchewan and head of the research team, explained, because it means “the risk of exposure in the public goes beyond people with travel histories and beyond people who have been previously hospitalized” — a select group — to the general public.
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