A 2-year-old Connecticut girl has a superbug that is resistant to powerful antibiotics, becoming the fourth American to contract the deadly infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday that the girl might have contracted the superbug while traveling in the Caribbean in June.
The patient contracted an E. coli infection harboring the mcr-1 gene, which makes the infection resistant to the powerful antibiotic colistin that is used as a last resort after other drugs fail to eradicate the infection. The CDC did not identify the patient, including her gender or age, but several news outlets reported the information.
Investigators are trying to see if anyone else contracted the infection, particularly those “involved in bathing or diapering” her, according to the CDC report.
The patient wasn’t hospitalized but did have a brief visit to the emergency room when she contracted an illness two days after returning to the U.S. from the Caribbean.
She is the fourth patient to come down with an infection that has the mcr-1 gene and the third to get it from another country.
In May, a woman in Pennsylvania contracted a urinary tract infection that had the gene. The major difference from the other three cases is that she didn’t get it from another country.
The CDC gave an update on the case Friday. It screened 105 people to see if they came down with the same superbug and found that no one had mcr-1.
