Drug resistant and deadly form of pneumonia discovered

A dangerous strain of pneumonia found in China has experts and doctors extremely concerned. As NPR reports, doctors in Hangzhou, China, detected a form of pneumonia that is resistant to drugs, deadly, and highly contagious. Called Klebsiella pneumoniae, the bacterium was found in a “brand new hospital with very good hygiene,” according to microbiologist Sheng Chen, who led a study of the outbreak and disease.

Five patients died from the pneumonia and the doctors had no drugs to stop it. The patients all died from either lung failure, septic shock, or organ failure.

Sheng and a team of other researchers replicated the disease in a lab and were “shocked at what they saw,” reports NPR. The bacteria are unlike other drug resistant so-called superbugs. “They are a fusion of two dangerous forms” of Klebsiella pneumoniae, one being drug resistant, the other hypervirulent. Doctors and scientists around the world had feared the emergence of a combined form of this pneumonia — calling it a “triple threat” — and now it has.

via Yahoo Drug resistant and deadly form of pneumonia discovered