Tuberculosis
Also known as the consumption, TB has been around since antiquity and was the greatest killer on earth before the discovery of antibiotics. Even now it is still deadly: in 2009 alone it killed 1.7 million people. And now a new form of TB has been discovered: Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis, or MDR-TB.
It’s difficult and expensive to treat and doesn’t respond to standard first-line drugs. The World Health Organisation says there are almost half a million new cases of MDR-TB every year, causing at least 150,000 deaths.
There’s also Extensively Drug- Resistant Tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, which occurs when resistance to second-line drugs develops on top of MDR-TB. Cases have been confirmed in 58 countries.
NDM-1
NDM-1 is the newest kid on the superbug block. It was an Australian researcher, Tim Walsh, who discovered it with the help of a British team. Rather than being bacteria, NDM-1 is actually an enzyme.
If bacteria have the NDM-1 enzyme, they become resistant to virtually any antibiotic. The NDM-1 enzyme can be passed into many different bacteria, potentially rendering these bacterial infections resistant.
Its full name is New Delhi-Metallo-beta-lactamase-1, so-named because that’s the place where it was discovered.
However, the Indian Government is unhappy about this, stating that it isn’t purely an Indian problem and shouldn’t be treated as such.
MRSA
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, shortened to MRSA, is a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics.
Although there are common strains of Staphylococcus aureus that live on the skin and in the nasal passages of healthy people, MRSA refers to strains that do not respond to some of the antibiotics used to treat staph infections.
The bacteria can cause infection when they enter the body through a cut, sore, catheter, or breathing tube.
The infection can be minor and local, like a pimple for example,or more serious, especially in people with weak immune systems (involving the heart, lung, blood, or bone).
This includes patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities and those receiving kidney dialysis. MRSA is a major problem in Australian hospitals.
Clostridium Difficile - The epidemic strain
If you have diarrhoea in hospital, you may be suffering from an infection of Clostridium Difficile, or 'C. Diff'.
The numerous spores formed by C. Diff are resistant to most hospitals’ routine cleaning methods.
A 2003 outbreak in the Canadian province of Quebec, which media reports say caused the death of 1270 people, brought to light a new, hyper-virulent strain of the C. Diff bacteria.
This strain has also been found in Australia. Dr Rhonda Stuart from the Monash Medical Centre said in a recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia that "Australia is now also in the grip of this new strain of C. difficile."
