bacteria – praag.org

Surf’s up: Antibiotic-resistant E.coli invading UK beaches

Perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise to learn that there’s a strong correlation between spending time in not-particularly-clean water and exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This is the revelation of a study presented Monday at the Society for General Microbiology’s Annual Conference, which estimates that swimmers, surfers, and other folks splashing around in the waters off England and Wales ingested antibiotic-resistant strains of Escherichia coli more than six million times in 2012.

The estimate is based on water samples taken from “coastal bathing waters” and varying estimates of incidental or accidental water swallowing involved with different water sports, including swimming and surfing.

According to the paper from a team at the University of Exeter Medical School, antibiotic-resistant E. coli is a reasonably rare phenomenon, accounting for about .12 percent of all E. coli found in the coastal waters in question. This becomes nontrivial with more exposures, which is a product of both the type of water activity and its frequency. For example, a surfer will certainly ingest more water and more resistant bacteria than a kayaker.

The strains of E. coli covered in the study are actually resistant to a whole class of antibiotics known as the third-generation cephalosporins. These are some of the most popular (overpopular, really) antibiotics out there, and this makes them especially vulnerable to emerging resistance.

E. coli, meanwhile, is a classic example of two-faced bacteria, with some strains existing harmlessly in the human gut and other virulent strains posing real dangers to humans in the form of food poisoning and diarrhea, as well as gnarlier stuff like bacterial pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and beyond. E. coli also happens to be rather adept at passing its own developed antibiotic resistance to bigger villains like Staphylococcus aureus through a process known as horizontal gene transfer.

“We know very little about how the natural environment can spread antibiotic resistant bacteria to humans, or how our exposure to these microbes can affect health,” offered co-author William Gaze in a statement. “People are exposed to antibiotic resistant bacteria in many ways, through person-to-person contact, via food and as a result of international travel.”

“Our research establishes recreational use of coastal waters as an additional route of exposure,” Gaze said. “With millions of people visiting beaches in England and Wales each year, there is a risk of people ingesting 3GC resistant E. coli, and it looks like water-users’ exposure to all resistant bacteria could be even higher.”

Source: Motherboard

China seals off city with bubonic plague

A city in China has reportedly been sealed off after one resident died from bubonic plague, but this way of trying to contain the disease is puzzling to infectious disease experts, who say the response seems extreme given the information released about the case.

According to news reports, Chinese officials have blocked off parts of Yumen, a city in northwest China, preventing about 30,000 of the city’s people from leaving.

A man in the city became ill after he handled a dead marmot (a large wild rodent), and died last week from bubonic plague. No other cases of the plague have been reported, according to the Guardian. About 150 people who had contact with the plague victim have been placed under quarantine.

Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis that is carried by rodents, and can be transmitted to people through flea bites or by direct contact with the tissues or fluids of an animal with plague, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease is known for killing millions of people in Europe in the 1300s, in a pandemic called the Black Death.

Today the illness is treatable with antibiotics, the CDC says. Now there are fewer than 5,000 cases of plague per year worldwide, with most cases occurring in Africa, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Source: Yahoo

Joburg serves contaminated food to their staff

Johannesburg City officials are served contaminated food at the Metro Centre as well as at functions catered for by food companies appointed by the City of Joburg.

In the city’s quarterly reports for January to March, it has been revealed that 11 of the 24 catering companies used by the city for the canteen and official functions, failed environmental health tests. The city employs some 30 000 members of staff, who at some stage, eat the food.

Food samples from these catering companies tested positive for bacteria.

The city’s department of environmental health uses the following criteria in testing food samples: the use of unsafe food, or food containing bacteria; preparing food in an unhygienic manner; not storing food at correct temperatures; and a lack of personal hygiene or the safe disposal of refuse. The 11 companies all failed on one or more of these criteria.

Another shocking figure released in the health department’s quarterly report shows that of 11 902 out of a total of 13 746 formal food premises inspected for compliance to food safety regulations only 5 667 were found to be compliant.

Of 3 472 informal food premises inspected, a total of 2 820 were found to be compliant.

City member of the mayoral committee for corporate and shared services Molly Mokoena said health was of great concern to the city, and to herself, but the appointment of caterers was done by the supply chain management unit.

Source: IOL

SA’s contaminated water poses danger to agriculture

South African river water is highly contaminated with a cocktail of bacteria. This water is used to irrigate agricultural produce all over the country and, if eaten raw, the contaminated food reaches and can cause illness in consumers.

This was said on Monday by Trevor Britz, professor in food science at Stellenbosch University at a congress being held by the SA Association for Food Science and Technology at the CSIR in Pretoria.

Britz is a scientist with a DSc from Pretoria University, specialising in environmental bacteriology. With colleague C Lamprecht, he has for four years headed a team conducting a study funded by the Water Research Commission and the Department of Agriculture on the use of river water for irrigation in agriculture.

The results have shown unequivocally that the microbial levels of rivers and fresh produce monitored in South Africa are unacceptably high.

Britz told the congress that consumption of fresh produce was increasing worldwide and, since often eaten raw, it made an excellent vehicle for disease transmission. Not surprisingly, food-borne disease outbreaks linked to fresh produce are increasing in number and intensity.

Although fresh produce can become contaminated at any time in the agri-food chain, pre-harvest contamination is considered the most likely origin. One important source of pathogens found on fresh produce is from faecally-contaminated irrigation water. Over the past decade the microbial quality of many local rivers used for irrigation of fresh produce has decreased and pollution levels are far above recommended World Health Organisation and local guidelines.

In some rivers faecal indicators reached “log 7” cell concentrations. In many cases the rivers did not meet the international faecal guideline for safe irrigation with Escherichia coli concentrations exceeding 1 000 colony-forming unit (cfu) per 100 ml-1.

The presence of indicator organisms indicated unsanitary conditions, as well as the presence of potential pathogens including staphylococcus, klebsiella, listeria, salmonella, enterococcus, coliforms, E coli, norovirus and hepatitis-A viruses, and protozoa.

It was concluded that there was a high risk of exposure to human pathogens when water from these rivers is used to irrigate produce that is consumed raw.

In view of this, as well as the seriousness of recent E coli food-borne outbreaks which involved multi-drug resistant pathogenic E coli strains, it could be argued that the potential of E coli as an emerging pathogen on fresh produce poses a serious risk.

In his lecture Britz said informal settlements and industrial pollution were the main sources of river contamination. “Our findings are extremely unpopular with both central and provincial governments and municipalities.”

Intervention was required to reduce the health risks but concerns were dismissed, for instance by saying the E coli contamination was reduced by the rivers. This was found to be untrue as the contamination was often just as bad downstream.

Education of the public was paramount in terms of hygiene, like washing hands and food, he said.

From the authorities, better sewerage infrastructure was urgently required. Many settlements had sewerage and water, but the capacity was too low to handle the load.

Unless something was done, the risk would increase, he said. – Pretoria News