It seems that the world has been hit with another one of the rapidly multiplying superbugs. A University of Calgary pathologist has been repeatedly raising alarm about a "multi-drug resistant strain of E. coli" which is now affecting communities around the globe.

The bacteria has been tracked from a Calgary lab, and Dr. Johann Pitout, the pathologist tracking it, has stressed that the strain is responsible for causing deadly infections in the urinary tract and the bloodstream, and these are very difficult to treat.

There is only one group of antibiotics that can attack and effectively treat these bacteria, but it is highly expensive.

"If this emerging public health threat is ignored, it is possible that the medical community may be forced in the near future to use carbapenems as the first choice for the empirical treatment of serious infections associated with urinary tract infections originating in the community", Dr. Pitout wrote in a paper on the drug resistant bug.

An enzyme the bacterium produces is mainly responsible for making it drug resistant. Over the past few years, a single strain of these enzyme-producing bacteria has been known to cause a huge increase in infections.

"There is a serious need to monitor the spread of this multi-drug resistant clone", Dr. Pitout writes.