Tulips may help spread drug resistance

Brightening up the hospital campus by planting tulip bulbs could become taboo after researchers found that bulbs imported from the Netherlands may be helping spread resistance to vital antifungal medicines.

A laboratory analysis of swabs taken from tulip and narcissus bulbs imported from the Netherlands and purchased from a garden centre in Dublin found that the majority were cultured resistant to Voriconazole, the leading antifungal therapy in treating aspergillosis fumigatus. A.fumigatus is a fungus that can kill immunocompromised patients, by causing fatal pneumonia.

The analysis also showed some evidence of cross-resistance to other antifungal medicines — known as triazoles — the go-to drugs for doctors treating infections caused by A.fumigatus.