May 25, 2012
A round-up of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
A cover story in the Mumbai Mirror examines the menace of antibiotic resistant infections in India s most populous city.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) releases a video on antimicrobial resistance in zoonotic bacteria.
M decins Sans Fronti res briefs experts on global R&D for pharmaceutical products, arguing that de-linking R&D costs from profits could expand access to lifesaving therapies for the global poor.
A study in the Journal of Infection in Developing Countries calculates the rate of HAIs among pediatric oncology patients in a hospital in Pakistan.
Science looks at a new campaign launched by the Chinese Ministry of Health to reduce unnecessary antibiotic consumption in the country.
Nashville Public Radio airs a piece on the GAIN Act, a piece of legislation designed to encourage new antibiotic development by delaying generic market entry and speeding FDA approval times. The GAIN Act is included in the version of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) just passed by the U.S. Senate.
At the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, a researcher reports a rise in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that is resistant to chlorhexidine, an antiseptic, in pediatric cancer patients at Texas Children s Hospital.
A public-private partnership between the pharmaceutical industry and Europe s Innovative Medicines Initiative adds just under 223.7 million to the arsenal of funds to develop new antibiotic therapies.
An author of a recent New England Journal of Medicine paper on FDA drug approval timelines argues for improved post-marketing surveillance of approved drugs. Pointing to another recent study on the link between azithromycin and cardiac risk, Harlan Krumholz calls for greater data sharing and systematic approaches to population-based safety research.
We know that exposure to antibiotics drives selection pressure for resistant bacteria. But could it also lead to more rapid genetic mutation? Wired Science s Superbug unpacks a study suggesting that evolution also favors high mutation rates.
In mBio, researchers sequence 12 strains of MRSA that are resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin.
The Telegraph covers a Health Protection Agency (HPA) report, which finds that just over 8% of children under two years old in UK hospitals acquire infections.
Also from HPA, while hospital infections are generally decreasing in the UK, infections caused by certain bacteria, including E. coli, appear to be on the rise.
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Image credit: Flickr: wellcome images
