BACTERIA that are resistant to vancomycin, the antibiotic of last resort, have emerged independently in at least eight countries including Britain, new research shows.
The results are worrying because vancomycin is the last antibiotic doctors rely on to kill the superbug MRSA — methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Researchers had previously thought that such bacteria were emerging from only one type of MRSA, but the new study has shown that they have evolved in all major types.
This finding, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, suggests that bacteria that are fully resistant to vancomycin may emerge as a major public health problem more quickly than had previously been feared.
The study, involving researchers from the universities of Bath and Bristol and Southmead Hospital in Bristol, examined 101 MRSA samples from eight countries — Britain, the US, France, Japan, Sweden, Poland, Norway and China.
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They found bacteria with increased resistance to vancomycin that had evolved from all five major types of MRSA.
What they found were examples of bacteria called Visa, or vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus, a strain that can still be controlled by vancomycin, but only if the dose is increased.
This type is believed to be an intermediate stage on the way to bacteria that are fully resistant to vancomycin.
Mark Enright, of the University of Bath, the lead author of the paper, said he believed that resistance to vancomycin would become more common as more of the antibiotic was used to treat increasing numbers of people with MRSA infections.
No one drug would then be able to tackle the bacterium, though combinations of antibiotics might still be effective, he said.