New superbugs pose major threat

The rise of new superbugs resistant to the most powerful antibiotics poses major risks to the UK and other countries, scientists have warned.

Less than a handful of antibiotics are currently in the pipeline to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the worldwide development of genes, which are resistant to last resort antibiotics, is a "nightmare scenario", the World Health Organisation said.

The body said abuse of antibiotics was threatening to take the world to an era before the discovery of penicillin in the 1920s.

The warning comes as the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said it had recorded 88 cases of bacteria with NDM-1 - short for New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamose after the place where it was identified - in the UK so far.

The enzyme destroys carbapenems, a major group of antibiotics used to treat difficult infections in hospital. Of the 88 cases, one has been in Scotland.

Anne Eastaway, consultant microbiologist at Health Protection Scotland, said: "The concern about NDM-1 is that it seems to be able to spread very easily between different species of bacteria, so you can have it in an e.coli and it can spread from that to a different group of bacteria."