Japan said Tuesday it plans a nationwide survey to assess the spread of an antibiotic-resistant "superbug" that surfaced in South Asia and was this week confirmed for the first time in Japan.
The bacterium carrying the New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) gene was found in a sample taken from a man in his 50s who was hospitalised with high fever for several months last year after returning from a trip to India.
Health Minister Akira Nagatsuma said the government may start a survey as early as this week of how far the new type of bug has spread, while also tightening reporting requirements on hospitals.
Drug-resistance in bacteria, blamed on the excessive and improper use of antibiotics, is not new, but the UN health agency has issued a warning on NDM-1 following research published in The Lancet medical journal last month.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on global health authorities to monitor the new gene that enables some types of micro-organisms to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics.
The Lancet said bacteria containing the NDM-1 gene had been found in 37 Britons who had received medical treatment in South Asia.
Western patients are flocking to India for operations ranging from facelifts to fertility treatment and open-heart surgery that cost in some cases only half of the going rate back home.
Indian doctors warned earlier this year that patients could spread the bacteria worldwide and cases have been reported in several countries.
Last month a Belgian became the first known fatality from NDM-1. The unnamed man had been hospitalised in Pakistan for a leg injury from a car accident and died after being repatriated to a hospital in Belgium.
In Japan, the bug was reported Monday by Dokkyo Medical University Hospital north of Tokyo. Physicians there notified the health ministry after they tested the man's preserved sample following the WHO alert.
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