A  roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.

A blog post written by CDDEP researcher Arindam Nandi discusses the intricacies of evaluating India’s new health insurance scheme. [CDDEP]

India is set to revise its malaria mortality data, and the new estimates may be at least 20 times greater than the current official figures. [Times of India]

In the first documented study of drug-resistant gonorrhea in North America (published in the Journal of the American Medical Association), Canadian researchers find that the standard dose of cefixime, the only oral antibiotic to treat gonorrhea, failed to cure the infection in 7 percent of patients at a clinic in Toronto. [NPR]

A British ethnographic study of reported infection data published in the journal The Milbank Quarterly shows that the main reasons for variability in reporting included challenges in setting up data collection systems, different practices in sending blood samples for analysis, and difficulties in deciding the source of infections. [HAI Controversies]

Responding to Dr. Richard Raymond s op-ed titled Antibiotics and Animals Raised for Food: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics, the Pew Center writes that he confuses matters. [Food Safety News]

On page 28 of their Global Risks 2013 report, the World Economic Forum underscores antibiotic resistance as one of the top 50 major global risks. [ReAct]

The European Commission has adopted a 12-step action plan to be implemented in EU member countries to tackle antimicrobial resistance. [Cordis News]

Transplanting RePOOPulate, synthetic stool made up from 33 different bacterial strains initially derived from a donor stool, is effective in treating patients with Clostridium difficile and is safer and better tolerated by patients than normal faecal transplants. [Daily Mail]

A report, comparing the health statistics of 17 developed nations and prepared by agencies including the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, finds that Americans have a strikingly consistent and pervasive pattern of poorer health at all stages of life and have a higher number of deaths from injuries, homicides, alcohol, and other drugs in comparison to other affluent nations. [The Atlantic]

An infographic produced by the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), an activist group, outlines the history antibiotic usage for feeding livestock. [Forbes]

A new compound has successfully treated mice infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and could be useful in developing antibiotics to treat MRSA in humans, according to research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Science Codex]

Bottom-up, community driven initiatives that engage health workers from their own communities might be more effective than top-down approaches at spreading simple messages on malaria transmission and prevention to control the spread of malaria. [The Guardian]

Image via seeingthings/Flickr

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