A typhoid superbug in Pakistan is raging away, there’s super-charged gonorrhea in Bondi and threats of a mysterious super-infection coming out of Yemen.

Genetic Signatures (ASX:GSS) is hoping hospitals will use its newly approved superbug-detecting kit to spot such bugs before people pass them on.

Genetic just received a tick of approval from the government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration health regulator to sell its superbug-detecting kit in Australia.

The “Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase and Carbapenemase Producing Organisms” Detection Kit already has the OK to be sold in Europe.

It detects hospital “superbugs” or “antibiotic resistant” pathogens in fewer than three hours, the company says.

It has been designed to quickly find pathogens resistant to 16 Beta-lactam (a broad-spectrum class of antibiotics) and Carbapenem (a subset of the former used to treat severe or high risk infections).

Superbugs could cost $US100 trillion and 10 million extra deaths by 2050 if resistance to antibiotics continues to rise, says the Review of antimicrobial resistance report commissioned by the UK government last year.

Genetic Signatures’ shares rose 14 per cent to 33c on the news that they are now able to help in the war on superbugs.

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