July 4, 2011

Poultry bacteria in Netherlands linked to superbugs

A study in the Netherlands revealed that bacteria on raw poultry may be a source of "superbugs" in people, and suggested that the use of antibiotics in food animals is causing life-saving drugs to lose their potency.

Bacteria resistant to multiple drugs were found in 80% of raw chicken bought from grocery stores in the southern Netherlands, according to researchers at the St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg. When the researchers compared the germs with specimens collected from hospital patients, they found the predominant resistance genes were identical.

The findings, reported in July's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, indicate drug-resistant bacteria in food are leading to harder-to-treat infections in people.

While human use of antibiotics in the Netherlands is among the lowest in Europe, the country is one of the region's biggest users of the medicines in farm animals, the researchers noted.

The researchers focused on a genetic component in bacteria that causes resistance to a range of antibiotics, including a class known as third-generation cephalosporins.

These medicines, which include Sanofi's Claforan and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Fortaz, are used to treat bacterial meningitis, pneumonia, as well as some infections caused by E. coli and other Gram-negative bacteria.