MEXICO – Rafael Peña Miller said continuing the trend in the overuse of antibiotics will result in a few years infectious diseases resistant to these drugs and could be one of the leading causes of death.

The scientist at the Center for Genomic Sciences at UNAM, said in a statement that it is the responsibility of doctors and society to dramatically reduce their consumption for the treatment of non-lethal infections.

When proliferation of resistant bacteria is favored, the so-called “superbug” occurs, like the recently discovered case in the United States.

Regarding this discovery, researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, Edmundo Calva, said it’s no cause for alarm, since “antibiotic-resistant bacteria emerge all the time, so it is recommended to use antibiotics with caution”.

He advises to decrease the use of antibiotics to avoid selecting resistant bacteria.

The bacteria reported in the United States was in a 49 year old patient suffering from a urinary tract infection caused by Escherichia coli version with a mutation mcr-1 gene, which makes it immune to colistin.

The latter is an antibiotic of “last resort”, by causing severe toxic damage in patients, only applies when all others no longer work.

In addition to causing urinary tract infections, Calva said that enteropathogenic E. coli is a bacterium that causes gastrointestinal or enteric disease and has several varieties that cause various clinical pictures.

The mutation in the gene mcr-1 and E. coli was detected in China and Europe in patients in clinical settings and hog farms where large amounts of colistin are used to keep animals healthy.

This first record in the Americas is not surprising, it looked a long time coming, said Edmundo Calva.

The risk is that the mutated gene is in a plasmid and from there could quickly move to more dangerous bacteria causing diseases, and resistant to other classes of antibiotics available strains.

Fortunately, so far there is a large group of antibiotics that can be used but should not forget that as they continue to use, selective pressure will favor those pathogens that have this mutation, scientists concluded.