Thanks to Mike Coston for his referral to Maryn McKenna's latest post at Superbug: Another new bad resistance factor. (Bonus: Another city stigmatized!) Excerpt (and then get out of here and read the whole link-rich post):
The subcontinent can cease fretting over the naming of that new bacterial new resistance factor NDM, for New Delhi. There’s a newer resistance factor in town, and this one stigmatizes… Italy.
Welcome, Verona integron-encoded metallo-beta-lactamase, or VIM.
To be precise, VIM isn’t new — its very first identification was at the Verona University Hospital in 1999 — but it has just been found in the United States for the first time.
The CDC said Wednesday evening that it has identified VIM in an American woman who took a Mediterranean cruise this summer, got diarrhea, was hospitalized (twice) in Greece, developed sepsis and C. diff, and eventually was transferred home and hospitalized here for a further 26 days.
In the US, she was found to be infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae, a gram-negative bacterium that’s a common cause of serious-hospital acquired infections — urinary tract infections, abdominal infections and pneumonias. This strain, though, was resistant to all the drugs usually used to treat Klebsiella. (The woman did recover.)
