Superbugs Are A Threat To Our Hospitals

 Hospitals are constantly fighting the threat of superbugs and the addition of this new one will just make things scarier still. The fact that many doctors still treat most infections with antibiotics, is a huge contributing factor to creating these resistant bugs. Read more in the article below.
  
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Expert warns of superbugs threat to UAE hospitals: 
Asma Ali Zain 31 August 2010, 10:58 PM

The number of ‘superbugs’ or bacteria resistant to common antibiotics is increasing each year in hospitals in the UAE, according to a surveillance programme.

While calling for more effective infection control measures in local hospitals, an expert has said the threat from superbugs is constant but in most cases it is either hospital or speciality specific.

Attributing the increase in the number of superbugs to abuse of antibiotics within hospitals, he said there was not enough compliance within the healthcare system.

“Doctors within hospitals are prescribing unnecessary antibiotics that is wiping out sensitivity and increasing resistance against bacteria,” said Dr Ashraf Mahmoud El Houfi, Chairman of the Infection Control Committee UAE. “If someone has a sore throat, he will take an antibiotic either over-the-counter or ask the doctor to prescribe it. This builds resistance,” he said

A central Infection Control Programme set up under the Dubai Health Authority and implemented in Dubai’s main hospitals including Rashid Hospital, Al Wasl and Dubai Hospital have been seeing a constant increase in the number and percentage of infections over the past three years.

The expert also says that fear arising from reports of the new superbug New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) are largely unfounded. “This is not a new discovery since bacteria have been fighting for their survival since the 1950s when the first such discovery was made,” he said.

According to a study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal, the strain may have originated in India and spread to parts of the world. If it jumps between strains of bacteria then untreatable infections could spread from patient to patient, fear experts.

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