New Delhi's Metallo-β-lactamase 1, or NDM-1, the new Gram-negative* bacterial pandemic originated in New Delhi's suburbs and resistant to commonly used antibiotics threatens to be the already announced 2012 pandemics. Will India's health care system be able to handle this new pandemic? First discovered in 2008 in two Enterobacteriacea isolates, both recovered from a Swedish patient transferred from India [2].

GRAM-POSITIVE VS GRAM-NEGATIVE BACTERIA

Gram-negative bacterias are a type of bacteria provided with a very strong shield that protect them against most available antibiotics, to which they are resistant. Contrary to gram-positive bacteria, easily treatable with antibiotic treatments to which they are vulnerable, gram-negative bacteria as NDM-1 are a threat to health care systems that find themselves unable to treat patients with antibiotic treatments. Examples of gram-negative bacteria are Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Candida glabrata, Candida albicans, Candida parapsilosis and Candida kreusei.

Almost one year ago The World Health Organization announced that the swine flu pandemic was over, today, the threat that a new new bacteria, Escherichia coli, could take over and keep threatening our day to day lives is a fact. Several victims in Germany, some of them with fatal results, prove we should take it serious. But, is it over? Is Escherichia coli the only super bacteria able to resist most common antibiotics and medical treatments.

It seems it's not, a new super-bug, as they know these new type of antibiotic resistant micro-organisms, the NDM-1, is on stage.