Don't Drink the Water

The world inches toward crisis after crisis and you can only care so much about so many looming disasters, but highly resistant bacteria are a BIG problem. The Third World contributes to these problems regularly with exotic viruses such as the Bird Flu and the Pig Flu. Now India offers us the SuperBug.

The NDM 1 gene, which creates what some experts describe as "super superbugs", has spread to germs that cause cholera and dysentery, and is circulating freely in other bacteria in the Indian city capital of 14 million people, the researchers said.

NDM 1 first emerged in India three years ago and has now spread across the world. It has been found in a wide variety of bugs, including familiar pathogens like Escherichia coli, or E. coli.

No new drugs are on the horizon for at least 5-6 years to tackle it and experts are concerned that only a few major drug companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L), still have strong antibiotic development programmes.

And when Indian people carry bacteria in their intestines outside of the infected area, those areas where they excrete -- are exposed.  And if YOU ARE infected with one of those bacteria strains, there are no antibiotics that can be used to defeat them. 

Experts say the spread of superbugs threatens whole swathes of modern medicine, which cannot be practiced if doctors have no effective antibiotics to ward off infections during surgery, intensive care or cancer treatments like chemotherapy.