MDRO

— The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has refuted claims made in an international study published by The Lancet that over 50% of Indian patients hospitalised for a specific gastrointestinal procedure are colonised with at least one multi-drug-resistant organism (MDRO). The study has raised alarm over soaring antimicrobial resistance in India, describing it as a rapidly escalating superbug crisis and a “global threat”. In response, the NCDC, which is mandated to prevent, detect, and control diseases of public health importance in India, pointed out that The Lancet dataset only reports colonisation of multi-drug-resistant organisms, not actual infections. “Colonisation is a microbiological finding, but not a clinical failure,” it said, adding that the results refer to specific high-risk clinical groups and cannot be generalised for all patients or the general population in India.