Indian doctors warned earlier this year that the country was facing the threat of a new multi-resistant "superbug" -- months before a British study that has been condemned for scaremongering by New Delhi.
A team of researchers from the private Hinduja hospital in Mumbai studied 24 infection cases between August and November last year and said they found 22 incidences of NDM-1 or "New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1" producing bacteria.
"This high number in a relatively short span is a worrisome trend that compromises the treatment options with the carbapenems," they wrote in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) in March.
Carbapenems are a type of antibiotic whose structure is highly resistant to beta-lactamase enzymes produced by some bacteria, including NDM-1, and are used as drugs of last resort against many multi-drug resistant infections.
"The growing incidence and also the diversity of carbapenemase-producing strains is therefore of major concern," the researchers added, warning that the superbug "has the potential for further dissemination in the community".
India's health ministry on Thursday reacted angrily to a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet that said health tourists flocking to South Asia for cut-price treatment ran the risk of picking up the superbug.
The ministry dismissed the claim by study author Timothy Walsh that it could spread worldwide, while some Indian politicians claimed a conspiracy to scupper the country's booming medical tourism industry.
But the Indian team concluded that even though they did not know the exact prevalence of NDM-1, it "has the potential for further dissemination in the community".
And, like Walsh, they also warned of its impact on medical tourism.
"Such dissemination may endanger patients undergoing major treatment at centres in India and this may have adverse implications for medical tourism," they wrote.
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