The blaNDM-1 gene is very dangerous: it makes the microorganisms that carry it very resistant to antibiotics. It has been known in laboratories for just over a decade, but was not found in natural settings until 2010, when it was detected in shallow waters off the Indian city of New Delhi.
Now, an international team of researchers has found this same gene in soil samples from the Svalbard Islands, an archipelago of Norwegian sovereignty located in the Arctic Ocean. According to Professor David Graham (University of Newcastle), director of the work, the gene has traveled there in the digestive systems of migratory birds, other animals and the few people who visit that remote place: their feces would have dispersed it in one of the last practically virgin places on the planet.
The dangerous spread of superbugs
The discovery is disturbing. As Graham points out, “a few years after the first detection of blaNDM-1 in an urban area of India, we found it more than 12,000 kilometers away, in a region where the human impact is minimal. It shows how quickly antibiotic resistance is spreading, and it warns us: solutions to this problem have to be global, not local. “
Antimicrobial drug resistance is a serious health threat. According to a report published by the WHO last November, the excessive consumption of antibiotics can accelerate the development of superbugs, especially dangerous for the elderly, children and the chronically ill. In Western countries, 17% of infections already have resistance to antibiotics, a percentage that soars in less wealthy but highly populated states, such as Brazil, Indonesia or Russia, where it ranges between 40 and 60%.
In Spain, superbugs kill more than 35,000 people a year, according to data from the Spanish Society for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC). Infections such as pneumonia, gonorrhea, or septicemia are becoming increasingly difficult to treat. And according to an EU report, in 2050 more people will die from this cause (about 10 million) than from cancer.
The evolution that threatens us
As David Graham explains, “Our abuse of antibiotics on a global scale has accelerated the evolution of the microorganisms they fight, creating new resistant strains and superbugs. When a new drug is developed, these pathogens evolve very quickly and become resistant to its effects; for that reason few new antibiotics are being created, because it costs a lot to make them for the little result they give ”.
Since its discovery in 2008, the blaNDM-1 gene (and its new variants) has been found in more than 100 countries. Its danger comes from its ability to synthesize the NDM-1 protein, which makes bacteria resistant even to carbapenems, antibiotics used as a last resort against multi-resistant infections.
Image: Raudfjord Glacier, Svalbard Islands (A. Weith / Wikipedia Commons).
