New superbug strikes 70 in Wales

Link: New superbug strikes Wales - icWales.

MORE than 70 Welsh patients have caught a new superbug which is resistant to virtually all antibiotics, Wales on Sunday can reveal.

There is growing concern across the UK that antibiotic-resistant infections caused by the bug Stenotrophomonas maltophilia – known as Steno – are on the increase.

But Welsh health experts have been quick to stress that such cases are rare compared to those caused by the superbug MRSA and E.coli.

Doctors studying the genetic code of Steno are worried about its ability to shrug off all but a couple of antibiotics.

But Dr Robin Howe, a consultant microbiologist, said Steno – which is found naturally in the environment – is not “another killer superbug”.

Dr Howe, head of the Welsh antimicrobial resistance programme for the National Public Health Service, said: “Stenotrophomonas is an environmental bacteria that is found everywhere – it has even been found in Antarctic ice cores. Interestingly, it is actually used on golf putting greens to get rid of brown-patch fungus.