Genes have historically been named after places where they were located: Timothy Walsh

Timothy Walsh, author of the controversial “superbug” study published last year in British medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday said he was unapologetic about his work but surprised at the reaction it had provoked from the Indian government and media.

Professor Walsh, who presented a paper on the NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1), the drug-resistant gene which he named after New Delhi after tracing it to hospitals in India, at the 1st Global Forum on Bacterial Infections, said: “I was chiefly responsible for naming the gene as NDM-1 and I am profoundly unapologetic about it.”

Professor Walsh, a professor at the Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, said genes had historically been named after places where they were located. “Indians in 2004 named a strain after New Delhi. You can turn things around into good or bad.”

He said he estimated a high prevalence of the NDM-1 gene in the Indian community and advised the government here to immediately roll out the antibiotic policy and build public toilets to create hygienic conditions.

“A recent study in Pakistan has shown community carriage of the NDM-1 gene at 13.8 per cent and a carriage rate of 27.1 % in patients in the hospitals. If these calculations are applied to India, over 100 million carriers would emerge,” Professor Walsh said.

However, he said that he was most disappointed at having received 58 hate mails and not a single message of appreciation from India for his work published in The Lancet.

“We would have fallen over backwards to help the government tackle the problem. But now no one is willing to even talk to me,” he said.

Professor Walsh said he was keen to set up a centre for molecular research in India to help trace the burden of antibiotic resistance in the community, but was not getting collaborators.

“The government here must give a call to work on antibiotic resistance. By confining its work in the sector to India, the government is violating World Health Organisation norms that seek global partnerships to tackle such issues. It would be great to work together,” he said.

In his presentation at the forum, the professor invited the government and scientists to work on NDM-1 emergence issues. He had last year discovered New Delhi metallo-beta- lactamase 1 (NDM 1) positive bacteria in some British patients who had undergone surgeries in India.

This gene made the bacteria resistant to a group of antibiotics called carbapenems which are normally used as rescue drugs in emergencies.

“Finding NDMs in hospitals is not enough. We must detect them in the community. The government in India must immediately ban over-the-counter sale of non-prescription drugs,” Prof. Walsh said.