November 11, 2017
World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2017 awareness campaign. To spread awareness for World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2017, CDDEP’s Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) project released an animated video that explains how bacteria develop resistance and turn into superbugs. [Superbug story video]
WHO: Call for an end to routine antibiotic use in farm animals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to prohibit the use of antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention in healthy animals. The guidelines also recommended restricting the use of medically important antibiotics for treating or preventing infections in animals. Instead, antibiotics used for the treatment of sick animals should be chosen from those considered least important to human health. [WHO Guidelines, Reuters, Huffington Post]
Increased risk of sepsis in previously hospitalized patients treated with antibiotics. A study in Clinical Infectious Diseases reports a significant increase in cases of severe sepsis and septic shock within 90 days of hospital discharge among patients treated with antibiotics during previous hospital stays. The researchers analyzed patient discharge and drug use data from more than 500 US hospitals, including more than twelve million patients. Patients with exposure to third- and fourth-generation antibiotics had a 65 percent higher risk of severe sepsis post-discharge. The risk doubled in patients treated with four or more antibiotic classes or had been treated with antibiotics for more than two weeks. [Clinical Infectious Diseases, CIDRAP]
Antibiotic therapy better than NSAIDs in treating UTIs. A study in The BMJ finds that symptomatic treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is less beneficial than antibiotic treatment in women with uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs). [The BMJ]
Increase in community-associated CDI in the U.S. A study conducted in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals in the US reports that community-associated Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) maybe on the rise. The study followed more than 30,000 patients with CDI between October 2002 and September 2014. Within the span of twelve years, the researchers found that hospital-associated CDI decreased by nearly twenty percent, whereas community-associated CDI increased by more than eighteen percent between 2003 and 2004. The findings have been reported in the American Journal of Infection Control. [American journal of Infection Control]
Pyrazinamide resistance in MDR-TB cases in China. A study in BMC Infectious Diseases finds that 62 percent of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases in Chongqing province in southwestern China were resistant to pyrazinamide (PZA), a key first line and MDR-TB drug. PZA resistant strains were also found to be more resistant to other drugs, such as streptomycin, ofloxacin, kanamycin, amikacin, and capreomycin. Among PZA resistant strains, 88 percent of them had a mutation in the pncA gene. [BMC Infectious Diseases]
MDR-TB outbreak in Minnesota, US. Seventeen cases and six deaths due to multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB) have been reported in Ramsey County in Minnesota, US. The outbreak has been linked to a senior care center, where ten cases were detected. [CIDRAP]
Cholera spread in Africa and Latin America linked to human activities. Two studies in Science link the spread of cholera in Africa and Latin America to human factors rather than environmental sources. The findings from the Africa study suggest that mass use of antibiotics, such as the use of tetracycline during the 1997 outbreak in Tanzania may have led to the spread of resistant strains. The second study from Latin America found that the strain that cause pandemics may have spread due to human expansion and not El Nino weather patterns, as hypothesized earlier. [CIDRAP, Science study on genomic history of seventh pandemic of cholera in Africa, Science study on integrated view of Vibrio cholerae in the Americas]
Madagascar’s plague maybe slowing down. The plague outbreak in Madagascar has increased to 2,034 cases according to The World Health Organization (WHO) update. More than 160 deaths have been reported so far with a case-fatality rate of eight percent. But there has been a decline in the incidence of pneumonic plague and hospitalizations since mid-October 2017 across the country. [WHO situation update]
Antibody dependent enhancement in Dengue virus. A study in Science supports the evidence of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) in dengue, which means once a person has been infected with any strain of dengue, subsequent reinfections can be more severe. The researchers note that this may have an impact on vaccine development for dengue. [Science]
Vaccine against dengue passes Phase-2 trials. A study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases reports results from a Phase-2 trial of a new vaccine candidate TAK-003 against dengue as safe and immunogenic in children between the ages 2 and 17. [The Lancet Infectious Diseases]
Global burden of GBS. A supplement of eleven research papers in the Clinical Infectious Diseases reports the global burden of Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infections. About eighteen percent of women carry GBS and it causes more than 147,000 stillbirths and infant deaths each year globally. India, China, Nigeria, US, and Indonesia carry the highest burden of GBS. [Clinical Infectious Diseases]
