Superbug alert: The rise of bacteria with NDM-1 gene and chicken fox?

Before there was beta-lactamase. Then came ESBLs.

Now here comes the NDM-1 gene or the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1.

This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year in two types of bacteria -- Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli.

These bacteria with the NDM-1 gene are scary for they are resistant to carbapenems.

With air travel and the fact that this gene was found in plasmids which can be transferred from one bacteria to another, the bug has a potential to really spread.

For more about this development, read this.

On the lighter side, just this morning I read this from the sports section of a local newspaper. It's in the Cebuano dialect. It is taking about a basketball team with a player returning from "chicken fox".

"Ang Warriors, nga aduna nay walo ka mga magduduwa sa pagbalik ni Jun Cantonao gikan sa pagkasakit og chicken fox, nakakombati pa’g insakto sa nag-unang duha ka quarters."

See the word "chicken fox"?

Do not be scared. It's not a new bug that turns chicken to foxes although if it will be a name for a disease, it sounds more dreadful than chicken pox. Imagine? Having "chicken fox"? Better to have chicken pox than chicken fox, right?

Anyway, I think what the writer really wanted to write was "chicken pox" although it is not known if he really thought it was called "chicken fox".

Stay healthy everyone!