Be careful! The bacterium seems to have already made three victims and one of them has even died, reports the Center for Infectious Disease Control (part of the RIVM).
Small side note: the patient who died did have a serious underlying disease † The other two have since recovered.
According to RIVM director Roel Coutinho is it a intestinal bacteria † However, according to him, it is not about one specific bacterium. The danger comes from a piece of hereditary information called NDM-1, which can be found in different types of bacteria.
Plastic surgery
How the bacteria got to Europe remains a mystery, but a very likely cause is plastic surgery † Many Europeans have undergone interventions in countries such as Pakistan and India, because they are a lot cheaper there than in their own country. Doctors and pharmacists there, according to Coutinho, are "insanely easy at dispensing the strongest and newest forms of antibiotics † This in fact creates a race between antibiotics and bacteria † And so the dangerous bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics again.
Roel Coutinho: "We still have a few antibiotics that work well. But the bacteria can become insensitive to that too. It is now especially important that this new bacterium is recognized in a timely manner in a sick patient. Various measures have already been taken for this. At the moment there are only very few patients in the Netherlands, so very rare.'
Still, it remains to be seen. According to Algemeen Dagblad, more than 50 people have already been infected in Great Britain .
