Popping antibiotics at the onset of even minor ailments like fever or cold can no doubt provide quick relief to the patient, and, in turn, authenticity to the general practitioner concerned, but the practice may prove harmful in the long run.

For, certain bacteria, such as the recent New Delhi superbug, may develop in the process, with bacteria slowly and slowly attaining resistance to antibiotics.

Concerned over the issue, health officials in the U. S. are nowadays investigating a new gene, which has the potential to transform several bacteria into superbugs that may be able to resist almost all antibiotics.

The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking into the cases of several such patients reported in the states of California, Massachusetts and Illinois. All of them had been recently to India, from where they reportedly contracted different kinds of bacteria that contain the gene.

Canada, too, has reported two such cases, revealed health officials at a conference on infectious diseases organized in Boston.

At the symposium, the medical experts pondered at the origin of these superbugs and what factors made them so powerful and invincible. To a certain extent, they said, people who popped antibiotics at the sight of small ailments along with the doctors who prescribed them were responsible for the development of such antibiotic-resistant superbugs.