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By Choi Ha-young
A super bacterium resistant to the strongest antibiotics that exist was found in humans in Korea for the first time, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday.
According to the CDC, the gene mobile colistin resistance-1 (MCR-1) has been found in three intestinal bacteria samples out of 9,300 collected at local hospitals since 2011.
The center found the gene in animals in August, but it's the first time the gene was found in bacteria in a human body. MCR-1 was discovered in China last year and previously in the United States, Europe, Africa and other parts of Asia.
The CDC said the gene is resistant to colistin and carbapenem, two antibiotics that are used to treat patients with multidrug-resistant infections as a last resort.
"If they are tolerant to colistin, it means options are considerably limited," Lee Gwang-jun, an infectious disease researcher from the National Research Institute of Health, told journalists.
The CDC warned the MCR-1 bacteria are highly contagious. "MCR-1 exists in a cell's plasmid, which makes it easy to infect across different species," it said in a statement.
The CDC started a project to observe superbugs more closely, in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
Experts have warned the public about overusing antibiotics which gives rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. "Not just Koreans. This is becoming a global phenomenon. And we need to raise awareness," Britain's chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies told The Korea Times, last year.
