Tokyo Versus the Superbug

The Japanese Health Ministry has found the country's first case of bacteria carrying a drug-resistance gene, which allows microbes to become "superbugs" untouchable by normal antibiotics, reports the Associated Press's Shino Yuasa. The gene, NDM-1, was found in a man who went to India for medical treatment — the gene, which was first reported in a Lancet study in August appears to be circulating widely in India, Yuasa says. The man went to Dokkyo Medical University Hospital after returning from India, and when the doctors read the Lancet study, they reexamined bacterial samples they'd taken from the patient and found them to have the NDM-1 gene, Yuasa says, adding that "researchers say that since many Americans and Europeans travel to India and Pakistan for elective procedures like cosmetic surgery, it was likely the gene would spread worldwide."