April 18, 2014
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
In honor of World Malaria Day, USAID Deliver Project has launched a Thunderclap social media campaign.
US Senator Sherrod Brown recently reintroduced legislation aimed at curbing antimicrobial resistance. The Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance (STAAR) Act would increase antimicrobial surveillance, prevention and control, and research efforts.
Antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs have been a victim of their own success, Brown said in a statement. We have used these drugs so widely and for so long that the microbes they are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective. We need a comprehensive strategy to address antimicrobial resistance.
A new malaria vaccine candidate has shown promising results in trials on mice, according to Indian researchers. [The Hindu]
The Canadian department of public health, Health Canada, is making moves to bar the country s livestock producers from using antibiotic growth promotion agents in livestock. Canadian drug companies have agreed “to phase out uses of medically important antibiotics for growth promotion” over the next three years. [The Star Phoenix ]
Preventing childhood illness and mortality requires a double-pronged approach that expands access to existing technologies while also encouraging innovation, according to the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH).
Portland, Oregon-based biotech startup DesignMedix has received a $3 million federal grant to develop and manufacture a low-cost drug that is hoped to be effective against resistant strains of malaria. [Portland Business Journal]
Aid from the Global Fund has helped China to increase its TB case-detection rate from 30% to 80% in three years and shift its focus from malaria control to malaria elimination, according to Yanzhong Huang in Forbes. [Forbes]
A study highlighted by the CDC s Quickstats this week shows that Americans over the age of 25 with bachelor s degrees are less likely to be regular smokers and more likely to be regular drinkers than their less educated counterparts. [CDC]
A new, FDA-approved stethoscope called the CardioSleeve can help doctors to better detect abnormalities by displaying patients heart function in the form of charts and graphs. [The Atlantic]
Scientists have identified a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Brazil. [Science Codex]
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Image via jasleen kaur/Flickr.
