A brain-swelling disease is making a comeback, with new strains proving resistant to antibiotics. Drug-resistant typhoid has been discovered among 32 samples collected from hospitals in India.
You can contract typhoid fever by drinking water or consuming food that has not been thoroughly cooked or washed with clean water and is contaminated with Salmonella Typhi. Typhoid is found in parts of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. In the UK, most people who get it have recently travelled to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
There were 702 imported cases of typhoid and paratyphoid fever reported in the UK in 2024, according to the UK Health Security Agency. This is an 8% increase from 2023 and the highest rate ever recorded.
Symptoms of typhoid fever usually begin within 3 weeks of infection, but sometimes may take up to 6 weeks. They include fever, headaches, coughing, chills, aches, pains, fatigue, constipation, and a lack of appetite.
The new drug-resistant gene, known as blaNDM-5, can transfer between different types of bacteria, sparking concerns that other diseases may also develop drug resistance.
There have been recent outbreaks of drug-resistant typhoid (XDR) in South Asia. Since 2016, over 15,000 cases of XDR have been reported in Pakistan. Other resistant strains have been reported in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal.
Dr Malick Gibani, clinical lecturer in infectious diseases at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph: “We all hear that antimicrobial resistance is a problem, but typhoid really exemplifies it – how resistance seems to emerge relentlessly, moving from one class of antibiotics to the next.
“It’s not yet untreatable, but the treatments we do have are much more limited and significantly more challenging to deliver. Although the number of cases described is still relatively small, this feels very much like a canary-in-the-coal-mine signal.
“This was always going to happen and probably reflects the relentless evolution of AMR in typhoid. While these infections are not yet “untreatable”, they are clearly becoming much harder to manage.”
The NHS recommends contacting 111 if you have recently travelled to an area with typhoid fever and feel unwell, even if you have been vaccinated. Call 999 or go to A&E if you have sudden stomach pain that worsens, your poo is black or dark red, you vomit blood, or have vomit that looks like ground coffee.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
