A new strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) which is highly infectious and at the same time resistant to powerful antibiotics (carbapenems) was identified by an international team of researchers, according to a publication in the scientific journal “Nature Communications”.
Danger to small children and the elderly
The bacterium E. coli which belongs to enterobacteria lives normally in the human body gastrointestinal system, without usually causing complications. Humans are infected by the bacterium mainly through consumption of contaminated food or water. Most strains of E. coli are harmless, but there are some strains that can cause serious symptoms such as severe abdominal cramps, diarrhea (sometimes with blood) and vomiting – in rare cases complications such as organ failure can occur and even death may occur. Young children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the dangerous strains of the bacterium.
The new powerful variant
It should be noted that carbapenem-resistant E. coli (CREC) strains have already been identified and are considered by scientists to be among the most dangerous resistant bacteria circulating – of which the ST410 strain was the most common resistant E. coli in Chinese hospitals among 2017 and 2021. Now an even more potent variant of ST410 called ‘B5/H24RxC’ has caused two outbreaks in a pediatric hospital in China.
Analysis of the B5/H24RxC variant strain in the laboratory showed that it was able to grow faster and be more harmful compared to previous variants.
Spread outside of China
As the professor mentioned Alan McNallydirector of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at University of Birmingham, from the authors of the study in “Nature Communications” “our highly important collaboration with colleagues in China and funded by the British Medical Research Council (MRC) allowed us to discover and characterize a new clone of E. coli which is more resistant to antimicrobial agents while showing greater pathogenicity. This is a worrying new trend and we are calling the attention of pathogen surveillance laboratories around the world to this new E. coli clone that we know has spread outside of China.”
The researchers analyzed samples from hospitals in 26 different regions of China taken between 2017 and 2021 to see the spread of antibiotic-resistant E. coli.
Link to UTIs
They isolated 388 carbapenem-resistant E. coli samples in different clinical samples including urine, sputum and blood samples and saw that the ST410 strain was the most common resistant E. coli isolated. Given that most of the samples (111) were urine, it appears that the resistant strain of the bacterium is more closely associated with urinary tract infections.
Escalating public health challenge
According to Dr. Ibrahim Xiaoling Ba, principal investigator at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge and first author of the new paper “our research illuminates the evolving landscape of antimicrobial resistance in clinically important pathogens such as E. coli and underscores the urgent need for collaborative efforts to address this escalating public health challenge worldwide” .
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