A 43-year-old battling cancer is admitted for a bone marrow transplant procedure. The transplant goes off well and she is almost ready to be discharged but suddenly develops a fever from a minor dental infection. Within days, the infection becomes raging. No antibiotic used seems to be working.
The microbiology lab discovers that her bloodstream carries a deadly bacteria called Klebsiella ; worse news still, the bacteria is resistant to most available antibiotics and the patient finally succumbs to the infection. The above-cited scenario has been happening across India since the proportion of drug-resistant bacteria increased as the years passed by. With 7,00,000 people losing the battle to antimicrobial resistance (the antibiotics losing their potency to kill the bacteria) and another ten million projected to die by 2050 around the world, it is killing more people than cancer and road…
