Study notes high MCR rates in healthy villagers in Vietnam

More than 80% of Escherichia coli–positive stool specimens collected from healthy people in a village in Vietnam contained the colistin-resistance MCR gene, according to a research letter today in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

Researchers collected one stool sample each from 98 people living in one of 36 households in a village in Thai Binh province along the northern Vietnamese coast. The villagers ranged in age from 2 to 81 years, with a median of 46.

Of the 98 samples, 88 (89.8%) were positive by culture assay for any pathogen, and 83 (84.7%) were positive for E coli. Of the 83 E coli isolates, 69 (83.1%) tested positive for colistin resistance, 68 of which (81.9%) contained MCR genes. Of that total, 64 were MCR-1, 3 were MCR-3, and one was MCR-1/3. Also, 29 of the 36 households (80.6%) had at least one person harboring an MCR gene.

Colistin is one of the most commonly used antibiotics in chickens and pigs in Vietnam, the authors note. “Such a high amount of colistin consumption by animals in Vietnam may facilitate the wide dissemination of [colistin-resistant E coli] in residents of rural communities,” they postulate.

Colistin is considered an antibiotic of last resort for multidrug-resistant infections.

Source: CIDRAP