A recent study of 1,000 women showed that 9% of them carried multidrug-resistant strains of E. coli in their intestines without showing any symptoms.
While bacterial resistance to antibiotics will be a major challenge for scientific research in the years to come, new work involving strains of superbugs E.coli present worrying conclusions.
Published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases from Oxford University Press and involving 1,000 women, the study shows that nearly 9% of them carried strains ofE.coli multiresistant to antibiotics in their intestines.
Virulent but asymptomatic bacteria
Bacteria Escherichia coli (E.coli) are pathogens responsible for urinary tract infections, pneumonia and gastroenteritis. They can be transmitted from the digestive tract to the female urinary tract through the urethra, and infect the bladder.
Most of E.coli pathogens found in the urine samples belonged to the multidrug-resistant pandemic clonal groups ST131-H30R or ST1193, known to cause the majority of urinary tract and bloodstream infections. These two multidrug-resistant groups were detected twice as often in the urine of people who had these specific strains in the gut, compared to other strains ofE.coli in general.
Three months after these first results, the participants again provided urine samples. It turned out that among the 45 carriers of the multiresistant strains and so far asymptomatic, 7% had developed urinary tract infections.
“The two pathogenic strains ofE.coli resistant to fluoroquinolones (antibiotics prescribed against urinary tract infections, editor’s note) which are found in clinical samples are upper intestinal colonizers and tend to persist there”, note the researchers. “They can also manifest themselves, at an abnormally high rate , in the urine of healthy women who did not have a diagnosis of urinary tract infection at the time of sample analysis. The two phenomena seem to be linked.
Better detect multi-resistant strains
According to Evgeni V. Sokurenko, professor of microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, these results could have several implications for clinical care and infection control because they suggest that these specific multidrug-resistant strains may have a lifespan. in the intestine longer than other strains. These “super bacteria” can also be detected in women’s urine without causing burning or other signs of bacterial infection.
For Professor Sokurenko, these results therefore show the need to better detect drug-resistant strains in urine, even in the absence of clinical symptoms, in order to avoid any risk of bacterial disease that is difficult to treat.
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