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IN PHOTO: A medical trolley is pictured next to a patient room at the palliative care unit of the AP-HP Paul-Brousse Hospital in Villejuif near Paris March 4, 2015. France's parliament will on Tuesday debate a bill allowing patients near the end of their lives to stop treatment and enter a "deep sleep" until they die, a move that critics say amounts to euthanasia in disguise. If passed, the legislation would give dying patients in the secular but majority Catholic country more power over their own treatment. Jean Leonetti, a centre-right lawmaker and doctor who authored the law, told Reuters the bill would allow patients with "hours or days to live" to request to be placed under general anaesthetic right through to the moment they die. Picture taken March 4, 2015. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Shigella, a severe stomach bacteria that has sickened thousands of Canadians every year, is increasingly and alarmingly getting more defiant against antibiotic treatment, causing panic over Canadian health officials.

Shigella bacteria outbreaks are not unusual, but what worries health authorities is its growing resistance to the antibiotic most commonly prescribed for adults. Dr. Vanessa Allen, chief of medical microbiology for Public Health Ontario, told the Canadian Press that 14 percent of the 663 shigellosis infectious cases recorded in Ontario between 2010 and 2015 had been resistant to the ciprofloxacin antibiotic. Many were also found defying the antibiotic Septra. "That means that one-quarter of the people you treat with that antibiotic may not get better. So that's quite concerning," she said. In some cases, they found the bacteria resisted the antibiotic by as much as a high 24 percent.

Compared to the present U.S. data, Allen said recorded cases in Canada were lower. However, she noted to CTV News the resistance “seems to be increasing both internationally, but also here in Ontario and in Canada over the last five years."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported early in April that shigella has infected some 243 people since May 2014. Most of the large recent outbreaks were in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California, CBC reports.

Shigella is typically contracted by travellers who had been to Asia or South America, particularly India and the Dominican Republic. The outbreaks occur once they come back home and spread the infection to others. Symptoms include diarrhea, cramping, vomiting, and nausea. The shigellosis infections sometimes go away on their own; sometimes, antibiotics are needed to immediately counter the illness. Shigellosis is most common during the summer months and spread very easily through contaminated food or pools and ponds. It is however easily preventable through good handwashing practices.

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