Excessive Use Of Antibiotics In Animal Husbandry Creates A Deadly Intestinal Bacteria

Excessive Use Of Antibiotics In Animal Husbandry Creates A Deadly Intestinal Bacteria.
The theme of E coli bacteria that this month killed dozens of rank and file in Europe and sickened thousands more may be more harmful because of the way it has evolved, a new review suggests. Scientists say this strain of E coli produces a particularly noxious toxin and also has a good ability to hold on to cells within the intestine. This, alongside the fact that it is also resistant to many antibiotics, has made the soi-disant O104:H4 strain both deadlier and easier to transmit, German researchers report.

And "This exertion of E coli is much nastier than its more common cousin E coli O157, which is unclean enough - about three times more virulent," said Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and writer of an accompanying editorial published online June 23, 2011 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Another study, published the same date in the New England Journal of Medicine, concludes that, as of June 18, 2011, more than 3200 clan have fallen hostile in Germany due to the outbreak, including 39 deaths.

In fact, the German extraction - traced to sprouts raised at a German organic farm - "was reliable for the deadliest E coli outbreak in history. It may well be so nasty because it combines the virulence factors of shiga toxin, produced by E coli O157, and the structure for sticking to intestinal cells cast-off by another strain of E coli, enteroaggregative E coli, which is known to be an important cause of diarrhea in poorer countries".

Shiga toxin can also daily spur what doctors call "hemolytic uremic syndrome," a potentially devastating form of kidney failure. In the New England Journal of Medicine study, German researchers estimate that 25 percent of outbreak cases involved this complication. The bottom line, according to Pennington: "E coli hasn't gone away. It still springs surprises".

To distinguish out how this thread of the intestinal bug proved so lethal, researchers led by Dr Helge Karch from the University of Munster wilful 80 samples of the bacteria from affected patients. They tested the samples for shiga toxin-producing E coli and also for acerbity genes of other types of E coli.