New Delhi, April 07: The Indian health ministry Thursday denied superbug NDM-1 posed any public health threat to Delhi’s environment, as a study published by a British medical journal has alleged.
“The environmental presence of NDM-1 gene carrying bacteria is not a significant finding since there is no clinical or epidemiological linkage of this finding in the study area,” V.M. Katoch, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research, told reporters.
The Lancet journal Wednesday said that NDM-1, a bacteria with multidrug resistant gene, was found in sewage and drinking water samples in a study done in the city.
“The bacteria is one of the millions present in environment. They develop multidrug resistance capacity because they have to survive in their environment. Such bacteria are found all over the world and it poses no great health risk,” Katoch said.
The Lancet said the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) gene, which makes bacteria resistant to an array of antibiotics including the most powerful ones, has been found in open water pools, water from overflowing sewage and even a couple of drinking water samples.
Katoch, along with Director General of Health Services R.K. Srivastava, said the study was not a scientific one but targetted India with “other motive”.
“The issue is very simple, some people are trying to turn the heat on India. If you do it scientifically, you will take it on a global scale rather than targeting a particular region,” Katoch said, refusing to state what the motive maybe.
“I am not in position to say what the motive may be,” he said.
The officials highlighted a study at Sir Gangaram Hospital which studied over 2,000 pregnant women over a period of two years for presence of multidrug resistant bacteria and none of the samples was found positive.
“In the same area (which the British researchers studied) the study carried out by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital tested for multidrug resistant strains of Esch.coli but it did not show any presence of NDM-1,” said Katoch.
The officials, however, said antibiotic resistant bacteria are developing due to wrong antibiotic use in hospitals.
“The antibiotic policy has always been there. Earlier it was in form of the hospital infection control policy. Sterilisation and proper use of antibiotics are the main concerns. We are also planning to make some drugs restricted,” Srivastava said.
Katoch emphasised that the antibiotic resistant bacteria developing due to over use of antibiotics is different from the superbug which breeds openly in environment.
Katoch also raised questions on the methods of study as the samples were collected and visually documented by a news channel under supervision of the research team and sent to Britain for examination.
Katoch also said that taking biological material from a country without proper permission was illegal.
–Agencies