Doctors named in Superbug study wash hands of it

Hinduja hospital in Mumbai says it did not send New Delhi superbug strain to authors of study published in Lancet

The Mumbai doctors acknowledged in the controversial Indian superbug study published in an international journal have broken their silence to say they had nothing to do with it.

With the study going as far as to advise medical tourists against travelling to India for treatment, health authorities in the country are already hard at work countering the negative publicity for the Indian healthcare sector.

Now, PD Hinduja hospital in Mumbai, which has been mentioned in the study, has distanced itself from the report published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The researchers claim Indian hospitals sent them positive strains of the superbug that has been named New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamese 1 (NDM1). In the published study, the authors thanked three doctors from PD Hinduja hospital in Mumbai for "providing NDM-1 strains".

Speaking exclusively to MiD DAY, Dr Gustad Daver, director of professional services at Hinduja hospital, said: "We have never sent them (authors of the study published in Lancet Infectious Diseases) any strains or had any communication with regard to the published article. We had done an independent study and they must have referred to that. Sending strains isn't an easy task as a lot of permissions are required and utmost care has to be taken. If it is mentioned that we sent them strains, then it is erroneous."

Dr Camilla Rodrigues, consultant microbiologist at the hospital who has been acknowledged in the article for her contribution, said she and her colleagues "had nothing to do with it".

"There were no strains sent from our centre. The report mentions that the strains they worked on were only from Chennai and Hyderabad. And we did not work on the report with them. We were only credited because they knew that we were also working on the same bacterium," said Rodrigues.

She added that the only article that she contributed on NDM-1 was in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI).

While doctors from the hospital are yet to do anything in the form of a protest against the misinterpretation in the study, senior doctors say that the incorrect data is definitely serious business.

"This standard of this journal is really world class and it is taken very seriously even by the World Health Organisation. If indeed it is true that the samples were never sent, then it casts a cloud of aspersion on the authenticity of some of the data in the study. Because if one site that the study mentions provided strains and it actually didn't, then this matter is quite serious," said Dr Rohini Kelkar, vice-president of Hospital Infection Society of India.

Dr Renu Bharadwaj, senior microbiologist and deputy dean of Sassoon General Hospital, is also researching the NDM-1 strain. She says the hospital concerned should send a letter of protest.

"How can someone claim to have received samples from you if you didn't send any? The doctors should definitely protest this mention and point out the errors in the article," she said.

Dr B Inamdar, president of the Mumbai chapter of the Indian Medical Association, said that the new developments were surprising but not shocking.

"Frankly, this superbug is just a big question mark. Lancet is an excellent periodical, but the Mumbai doctors claiming that they did not have anything to do with the research only makes the report more questionable and the researchers need to lay down more solid proof to link this bug with our country," said Inamdar. "There just isn't enough there to make such strong statements."