- India's health ministry completely rejects as "unscientific" and a "conspiracy" claims by researchers that medical tourists are spreading a new "superbug" that is alleged to have originated in the country. India states that its hospitals are safe. (Aljazeera)
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India has forcefully stated that its hospitals are safe after researchers said that medical tourists to the country had caught a new "superbug". Some Indian politicians on Thursday said that there is a conspiracy against the country's rising medical tourism industry. A study in The Lancet, a British medical journal, said that a newfound NDM-1 bacteria, or New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1, is a new type of antibiotic-resistant bug that had been carried from India to the UK. The journal warned that the bug could spread worldwide. Six respected Indian institutes, including the University of Madras in Chennai, took part in the study, and eight of the 31 researchers involved work in Indian institutions, according to the Indian Express newspaper. Still, the Indian health ministry reacted angrily to the findings, calling them "unscientific". The Indian health secretary told the Indian Express she was "shocked" that The Lancet published the study. "We strongly refute the naming of the enzyme ... and also refute that hospitals in India are not safe for treatment including medical tourism," the ministry said in a statement. "To link this with the safety of surgery in hospitals in India and citing isolated examples to show that ... India is not a safe place to visit, is wrong." |
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