On the heels of finding superbugs resistant to last resort antibiotics such as colistin in China and Denmark, researchers have identified bacteria containing the same resistance gene, MCR-1, in both pigs and humans in the U.K., according to a report from The Guardian.
David Brown, PhD, director of Antibiotic Research UK, told The Guardian that efforts to identify new types of antibiotics that could be used in place of those bacteria are becoming resistant to are not working.
"The issue is people have tried to find new antibiotics but it is totally failing — there has been no new chemical class of drug to treat gram-negative infections for more than 40 years," Dr. Brown said. "I think we have got a 50-50 chance of salvaging the most important antibiotics but we need to stop agriculture from ruining it again."
The agricultural industry has long been in the cross hairs for its widespread use of low-level antibiotics to promote growth and mitigate sickness in livestock. Low-level exposure across a wide range of creatures like this creates an ideal environment for dangerous pathogens to become acquainted with amounts of antibiotics small enough to adapt to their effects and become resistant.
On the current trajectory, worldwide demand for the last resort drug colistin is expected to reach nearly 12,000 tons by 2021, according to the report. While the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria spreading through a land mass like the U.K. any time soon is small, Dr. Brown told The Guardian there are a number of converging factors that could rapidly increase risk, such as migration and lack of public education about the threat.