There are unconfirmed media reports that a plastic surgery patient who returned to Australia with an extremely antibiotic-resistant bug may be linked to the so-called NDM-1.
When SBS contacted the Department of Health and Ageing, they were unable to confirm the report.
The problem stems from 'health tourists' flocking to south Asia and have carried the new class of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Researchers in Britain are warning that the bacteria could spread worldwide.
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Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs due to a recently discovered gene that can jump across different species of bacteria.
This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria - Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli - in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India.
Worryingly, the new NDM-1 bacteria are resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug resistant bugs.
