Salmonella, resistant to all known drugs, has been detected by scientists in the USA. This is another country that has reached the bacteria.
According to scientists from North Carolina State University, in one of the patients treated in the USA, the gene called mcr-3.1 was found in the genome of the Salmonella bacterium.
It gives the microorganism resistance to colistin – a last-line drug for the treatment of multi-drug resistant Salmonella infections.
“Public health specialists have known about this gene for some time,” says Prof. Siddhartha Thakur, co-author of a publication that appeared in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.
“In 2015, it was noticed in China that mcr-3.1 had moved from the bacterial genome to the plasmid, which means that it can be transferred between organisms. For example, E. coli and Salmonella bacteria belong to the same family, so they can pass on a plasmid with the gene. Since mcr-3.1 jumped to plasmid, it has spread to 30 countries, although according to previous knowledge it was not in the US “- explains the expert.
Salmonella causes salmonellosis
The patient who was diagnosed with the bacterium visited China two weeks before he became ill. Worse, the incident was quite a long time ago.
“The sample with the gene comes from 2014, so this discovery is of great importance for the scale with which the bacterium could spread in the United States” – emphasizes Prof. Thakur.
Salmonella causes unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms similar to the popular food poisoning. However, salmonella poisoning differs from the usual one in that it can lead to infection of internal organs or joint ailments. Symptoms of salmonella poisoning appear as early as 8 hours after eating contaminated food.