"CDC Alert: Drug-Resistant Foodborne Illness Spreads in US"

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sounded the alarm on a common foodborne illness that has acquired a new and challenging type of drug resistance—and the discovery betrays the difficulty, not just of finding new treatments, but of tracking resistance as it moves around the world.

In its weekly bulletin, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report or MMWR—which is probably the best-read publication that you have never heard of—the CDC describes the discovery of Shigella sonnei resistant to ciprofloxacin or Cipro, which was until now the go-to drug for treating it. Until very recently, almost all Shigella was susceptible to Cipro, but since last May, this newly resistant strain has caused 243 cases of illness in 32 states and also in Puerto Rico. Some of those cases were clusters—45 in Massachusetts, 25 in California, 18 in Pennsylvania—and some were outbreaks in specific groups: homeless people, and kids in day care."

Maryn McKenna reports for National Geographic April 4, 2015.