The death of a Nevada woman in September was due to a bacterial infection that was resistant to every single antibiotic in the United States. And infection-control experts are alarmed.
“I think this is the harbinger of future badness to come,” James Johnson, M.D., a professor of infectious diseases medicine at the University of Minnesota and a specialist at the Minnesota VA Medical Center, told STAT.
The case, reported in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, highlights the growing concern over the need for antibiotic stewardship to combat drug-resistant superbugs.
The patient was a woman in her 70s from Reno, Nevada, who returned to the United States in August 2016 after an extended visit to India, where she had been sick and hospitalized several times, according to the CDC. She was admitted to an acute care hospital in Nevada on August 18 with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). It was resistant to 26 antibiotics. She developed septic shock and died in early September.
The CDC notes that the case shows why healthcare providers must obtain a history from patients of any healthcare exposure outside the United States and consider screening for CRE.
When an organization identifies bacteria such as CRE, the CDC recommends that facilities take appropriate infection-control contact precautions to prevent the spread of infection.
But the case is alarming because no drug was available to cure the woman’s infection. Experts have long warned that drug-resistant superbugs are a global threat, with one report indicating that they could kill someone every three seconds by 2050.
To help combat the threat, healthcare providers are urged to stop overprescribing antibiotics and reserve broad-spectrum antibiotics for hard-to-treat infections.