WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE
Two years ago, a serious cut to Sandra Hocking's ankle would have been treated with modern antibiotics. Today, she faces losing her leg.
The 75-year-old Whittlesea resident was in Zambia last September helping orphans when she fell into a hole and sliced open her ankle.
She returned to Australia with a gaping wound that refused to heal.
Ms Hocking was horrified when doctors told her in April that she had contracted a deadly antibiotic-resistant superbug, and there was no medication available to treat it.
In what her doctors believe is one of the worst cases of a superbug infection ever seen in Australia, she now faces the prospect of having her leg amputated.
"It's a total bastard of an organism in that it's one of the most resistant," Ms Hocking's doctor, Lindsay Grayson, said. "It's one of the worst cases I've seen."
Just two years ago the bug, called pseudomonas, was treated with modern antibiotics. But it has since become resistant to them all.
"The pus coming out of her leg was loaded with this superbug. We only needed the slightest error by staff and it could spread to equipment and other patients," Professor Grayson said.
Placed in isolation at the Austin hospital, Ms Hocking was eventually treated with two old antibiotics, one which was phased out because it caused kidney failure in high doses.
She was faced with the frightening choice of taking the drugs or losing her leg.
"I'd heard of superbugs ... but the fact that I got it ... I was devastated. I cried and I cried," Ms Hocking said.
An expert team of doctors from Austin hospital and Melbourne and Monash universities carefully administered the drugs using an intravenous drip.
She also had multiple surgeries and her doctors grafted skin from her arm onto her ankle to increase blood flow to the area, a technique used before the invention of antibiotics.
"This is her last chance," Professor Grayson said. "If this fails, she'll lose her leg. She has a very anxious wait."
Professor Grayson believes a superbug crisis is on Australia's doorstep.
He said there were now patients presenting with superbug infections once a week in Australian hospitals.
"We need people to understand that if we continue to recklessly misuse and overuse antibiotics, as we have for the past 50-70 years, doctors will be faced with the choice to amputate infected limbs or risk their patients' lives," Professor Grayson said.
He said Australia was lagging behind the rest of the world in infection control, and that a coordinated national authority was urgently needed.
Professor Grayson also called for better surveillance, enforced mandatory reporting and more research.
The looming superbug crisis will be in the spotlight on Thursday at the Antimicrobial Resistance Summit at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute.
