Feared Superbug Showed Up in US Last Year

Feared Superbug Showed Up in US Last Year

A much-feared superbug that defies the effects of a last-ditch antibiotic showed up in a U.S. patient in 2015, researchers reported Monday.

An Iowa company that tests samples said the patient in New York was infected with E. coli bacteria carrying a gene called MCR-1 that provides resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic.

The findings, published in the American Society for Microbiology journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, provides some reassurance. Out of 20,000 samples tested, only 19 carried the MCR-1 gene. And just one was in the U.S.

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