The international medical journal The Lancet has accused the Indian government of suppressing the truth about presence of a drug resistant bacteria NDM-1 in Delhi’s water system after a report on the same was published by the journal last week, reported PTI on Sunday.

The Lancet’s editor Richard Horton said to Times Now news channel that India is abusing its own doctors by denying the research’s findings.

The study, ‘Dissemination of NDM-1 positive bacteria in the New Delhi environment and its implications for human health: An environmental point prevalence study’, was released on Thursday and is co-authored by professor Timothy Walsh and Dr Mark Toleman of the Cardiff Institute of Medicine. They studied 171 seepage samples and 50 tap water samples collected from Delhi between September 26 and October 10, 2010. Out of this, NDM-1 gene was found in 51 seepage samples and two tap water samples.

The government also accused the researchers of transferring samples of water from India illegally. To this, magazine’s press officer Tony Kirby said, “We broke no Indian laws whatsoever.”

Director general of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) V M Katoch said at a press meet after the release of the study that the researchers are trying to create unnecessary panic in the country.

“There are thousands of genes causing multi-bacterial resistance besides NDM-1, and they are found in all parts of the world. The need to focus only on NDM-1, and that too only in India, is questionable,” Katoch had said.