Warning as new superbug hits UK

A NEW superbug that kills up to half of those who fall ill is threatening to sweep through hospitals, doctors fear.

Known as ‘CREs’, the bugs are super-strains of common bacteria such as E.coli and Klebsiella pneumonia that are already rife in India – and spreading fast across Europe.

UK hospitals are seeing more and more cases every year, leading to fears of a lethal outbreak on wards. People can carry CREs without becoming unwell, but the bacteria can break out and cause ‘systemic infection’ among the ill.

CRE are gut bacteria called carbapenems which have developed immunity to the ‘antibiotics of last resort’.

Dr David Jenkins, head of infection prevention at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, said: ‘It’s a massive problem for many countries around the world already and an impending disaster for countries like Britain, which currently have a low prevalence.

‘CREs are either extremely drug resistant, meaning they are resistant to most antibiotics, or pan-drug resistant, meaning they are resistant to everything.

‘If we get pan-drug resistance then we really don’t know what to do. That’s the end of the line.’

Patients can develop sepsis and quickly die, he said. US academics have estimated the death rate among those who fall ill is 40 to 50 per cent.

Public Health England (PHE) says there have been ‘dramatic’ increases in lab-confirmed cases, rising from five in 2006 to about 1,000 in 2013. These figures refer to the number of samples, from healthy and unwell patients, which have tested positive for CRE.

Tomorrow, PHE will publish a report which is expected to show a further sharp increase.

Dr Jenkins said: ‘In Leicester we have seen a year-on-year increase. It’s becoming much less of a rare event.’

Despite the seriousness of the threat, nobody knows how many NHS patients are being killed by CREs, because there are no official statistics.