Bacteria resistant to colistin, the so-called last resort antibiotic, are probably being transferred to humans from poultry farms in China, say researchers, adding to fears that time to develop new types of medicine is running out.
The 2015 discovery in China of bacteria with mcr-1, the colistin resistance gene, sparked fears over the future of human health. Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, said last year that medicine risked “going back to the dark ages” without action to spur development of new antibiotics and to preserve the dwindling numbers that remain effective.
Since the discovery in animals on farms where colistin was widely used as a growth enhancer, bacteria with mcr-1 have been identified in more than 30 countries including the US, Germany, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam. A patient in the US was found to have been infected with e-Coli carrying the gene last year.