Health Officials Keeping Close Watch on Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug
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Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Health officials are warning of a new disease that could be this generation’s version of AIDS, an infection that is resistant to virtually all antibiotics.
News of the superbug known as Klebsiella pneumoniae came out earlier in the week when it was revealed that six people died from bloodstream infections at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in 2011 despite all efforts to contain the bacteria.
Those who died were cancer patients, people on anti-rejection drugs after organ transplants or suffering from genetic disorders.
Nonetheless, Tara Palmore, an infection control specialist at the Bethesda hospital, admitted the bacteria were “the proverbial superbug that we’ve all worried about for a long time.”
Doctor Sarah Browne of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led a new study on the disease and says “the similarity to AIDS is that it is an immuno deficiency syndrome so patients have a compromised immune system, but the underlying cause of this immune deficiency syndrome is completely different.”
While no one is saying that it has ability to spread around the world like AIDS, Browne acknowledges that the superbug’s ability to repel antibiotics is cause for concern.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio