CIDRAP has published News Scan for Mar 10, 2014: NDM antibiotic resistance; Measles outbreaks; Climate change and malaria; Meningitis in Uganda. Excerpt:
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recently urged countries to strengthen surveillance and control of the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase–producing (NDM) antibiotic resistance, based on continued spread and detection in several countries.
The first findings in the Americas occurred in 2010 in the United States and Canada in patients who had received medical care outside the region. Since then, more countries have reported the NDM resistance mechanism, and six reported the discovery of it in a range of organisms in 2013: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
So far, 12 of the region's countries have reported the NDM mechanism in Enterobacteriaceae. Three have reported the NDM mechanism in Acinetobacter.
PAHO repeated the recommendations it made in 2011 and 2012 and highlighted the importance of establishing timely prevention and infection control in health services, as well as for surveillance and detection.
The NDM factor, initially reported in 2010, can make gram-negative bacteria resistant to nearly all antibiotics, and some experts have said it has the potential to become a global health problem, because few antibiotics for such bacteria are in the drug development pipeline.