A deadly hospital superbug has been found on a remote island beach, the first time researchers have seen a “multidrug-resistant organism” in the wild.
Findings published in the MBO Journal on Tuesday (March 16) may give the key to the origin of this superbug, Candida uris res, Which mysteriously popped up in hospitals around the world almost a decade ago.
“It’s a medical mystery, where it came from,” said Dr. Johns Hopkins, head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Said Arturo Casadeval, who wrote the editorial along with the study. The new findings are “a very important part of the puzzle,” Casadeval told Living Science.
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C. Eris Is a fungus that was first found in a Japanese patient in 2009. It seemed fast Spread all over the world, Appearing on three different continents at the same time. These microbes can cause serious infections of the bloodstream, especially in patients who need a catheter, esophagus, or trachea. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Infections are difficult to treat because the microbes are often resistant to multiple antifungal drugs; And it also extends to environmental surfaces. “When he goes to the hospital, it’s a nightmare for infection control,” Kasadev said. In 2019, the CDC made the announcement C. Eris A “Urgent threat” to public health.
Although related species have been found in plants and aquatic environments, C. Eris Not found in the natural environment. Casadeval and colleagues have previously speculated that the rise was due to the temperature Climate change May be due C. Eris Adapting to high temperatures in the wild, and thus allowing the fungus to jump into humans, whose normal Body temperature Most fungi are usually too hot to survive.
Inspired by this hypothesis, the study’s lead author, Anuradha Chaudhary, a medical mycologist at Delhi University in India, and colleagues collected soil and water from eight locations around the Andaman Islands, a remote, tropical archipelago between India and Myanmar.
Researchers isolated C. Eris From two sites: Salt Marsh Wetland where virtually no people go, and a beach with more human activities.
This C. Eris Chaudhary said in a statement that all the multidrugs isolated from the beach were resistant and more closely related to the stresses seen in hospitals than the isolates found in the waste.
A different drug found in marsh was not drug resistant and grew more slowly at higher temperatures than other isolates. This finding suggests that this loneliness can be a “wilder” stress C. Eris, One that has not yet adapted to the body temperature of humans and other mammals, Casadev said.
This study provides little support for the global warming hypothesis because, first and foremost, it was called C. Eris In the natural environment, which is necessary for the hypothesis, said in the editorial. Also, “wilder” loneliness can be a lost link between the wild C. Eris And those that bring infection to hospitals.
However, studies do not prove it C. Eris Naturally lives on the Andaman Islands, or it originated from there. It is likely that the microbe would have been introduced by people, especially at a beach site that had more human activity. In addition, some researchers have wondered whether the microbes may have been carried by ocean currents from areas where human waste was dumped into the waters off the coast of the Andaman Islands, Casadeval said.
The new findings will likely encourage more researchers to find out C. Eris To compare wild stress in the natural environment and with the people of H, Spital, Kasadev said. The study will also be able to verify whether it is wild C. Eris Isolates with low heat tolerance can be “developed” in a lab setting to rise to higher temperatures, thus providing more support to the global temperature hypothesis, the editorial said.
If it is really shown C. Eris Coming from the wild, and that global warming was a factor in the rise in humans, researchers are concerned that more pathogens could jump as well. Many fungal organisms are harmful to insects and amphibians, but not to humans due to the high temperature of our bodies, Kasadev noted.
“If this idea is accepted … we need to start more mapping of these pathogens that are there so that we are not surprised,” Casadev said, as we were surprised by the new coronavirus.
Published on Original Living Science.
