March 16, 2012
A round-up of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
April’s edition of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology is entirely devoted to antimicrobial stewardship. The collection of research shows challenges, priorities, and successes in stewardship efforts, including one study demonstrating how a 7-year antimicrobial stewardship program at the University of Maryland Medical Center proved to be extremely cost-effective.
Work in a hospital setting? Fill out the first global survey on antimicrobial stewardship, from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID).
At the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, experts call for increased antibiotic stewardship and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to incentivize new antibiotic development.
Research in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that azithromycin could be a preferred treatment for a strain of deadly, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. In 2011, this strain sickened over 4,000 people in Germany.
The Times of India shines a light on neonatal and pediatric mortality associated with hospital-acquired infections in a Mumbai facility.
Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, warns that we are moving towards a post-antibiotic era in a recent speech in Denmark. Read her full remarks.
Research in the Journal of Infectious Diseases examines the relationship between gastric H. pylori bacteria a major cause of ulcers and diabetes.
The European Centre for Disease prevention and Control (ECDC) in Sweden and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Italy team up to publish their annual report on antibiotic resistant bacteria in food. Trends are mixed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) documents how one outpatient hemodialysis center in New Jersey significantly reduced incidence of blood stream infections in its facility.
A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that the presence of nanomaterials in water aids the transfer of multi-drug resistance genes between bacteria.
The Indian government issues a compulsory license to allow generic competition for a kidney and liver cancer drug produced by Bayer. Médecins sans Frontières applauds the decision, which could set a precedent to discourage price gouging and expand access to other medicines in low-resource settings.
Image credit: Flickr: Wearn
