12/08/2010
Govt: Linking superbug to India 'totally irrational'
(GOOD TO SEE GOVERNMENT HAS WAKEN UP TO CONSIDER THESE KIND OF MALICIOUS CAMPAIGN AS OBJECTIONABLE)
New Delhi: India on Thursday described as "totally irrational" British scientists linking a new superbug resistant to antibiotics to this country and said it was responding to an alert issued by Britain in this regard. VM Katoch, Secretary of Health Research, said that the government would soon draft a reply to this after a meeting of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), a nodal agency under the Health Ministry.
"When you link it to something to our antibiotics policy, say India specific, say it is dangerous to get operated in India then you will get more infections, that is totally irrational," he said. Katoch said the Health ministry will examine the issue in detail but it was "unfortunate that this new bug, which is an environmental thing, has been attached to a particular country which is India in this case".
"I am surprised," he said, adding that, "this (the bug) is present in nature. It is a random event and cannot be transmitted". Katoch said that he was surprised that a research paper linked it with India as they should know it was a biological phenomenon. The issue also figured in the Rajya Sabha today where members suspected the hands of multinational pharmaceutical and hospital companies behind the claims.
"When India is emerging as a medical tourism destination, this type of news is unfortunate and may be a sinister design of multinational companies" to defame the Indian medical sector, SS Ahluwalia (BJP) said. Demanding a response from the government, he said some foreign tourists after returning from India reported some infection and attributed it to Indian hospitals. "It may not be true," he said.
Ahluwalia, who was supported by Jayanti Natarajan (Congress), said there should be a system of maintaining a registry for patients suffering from infectious diseases. Natarajan said reports of superbug, attributable to India, is a "wrong propaganda against the country".
According to a paper published in scientific journal 'Lancet', the new superbug, which is said to be resistant even to most powerful antibiotics, has entered UK hospitals and is travelling with patients who had gone to countries like India and Pakistan for surgical treatments.
Bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 or New Delhi-Metallo-1, have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery, it said. Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global. NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like Ecoli, and it makes them resistant to one of the most powerful groups of antibiotics-carbapenems.
Source: The Indian Express
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