November 14, 2014
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan’s talk from the TEDMED 2014 conference was published online this week. The talk, entitled “The Coming Crisis in Antibiotics,” can be viewed at TED.com and on YouTube. [TED]
Next week, November 17-23, is the annual CDC Get Smart About Antibiotics week, coinciding with antibiotic public health campaigns around the world and Antibiotic Awareness Day on November 18th. Important events include opening of submissions for the 2014 Longitude Prize, the Antibiotic Guardians campaign and Tuesday’s CDC twitter chat on antibiotic resistance. CDDEP will have several posts on our, as well as a new interactive visualization and publication—all to come next week. [CDC, CDDEP]
The WHO cautiously noted a declining rate of new Ebola cases in Guinea and Liberia this week, though the official death count from the outbreak has now surpassed 5,000. At least three new Ebola cases were diagnosed in Mali in the last week and hundreds of healthcare workers went on strike at the only Ebola treatment center in southern Sierra Leone due to not receiving hazard pay. [BBC]
A study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine found that childhood incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease declined substantially in South Africa after a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) was introduced, from over 54 percent before vaccine introduction to around 17 percent after. The study also found a significant decline in antibiotic resistance coinciding with use of the vaccine, as the PCVs included antibiotic-resistant pneumococci serotypes. [The New England Journal of Medicine]
The World Health Organization warned this week that progress in eliminating measles has slowed significantly in the last few years; worldwide deaths from the highly-infectious disease increased by more than 20,000 between 2012 and 2013. WHO highlighted that the critical gains made in the last decade towards elimination are now threatened by lack of funding and low vaccination coverage.
Malaysia’s portion of the island of Borneo has recently seen a rare form of malaria not normally found in humans. The parasite, Plasmodium knowlesi, is common in macaque monkeys but has become the most prevalent malarial cause of hospitalizations in the area. [The New York Times]
The seasonal influenza vaccine has been found to be effective for community-dwelling elderly people, according to a paper published this week in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases, which assessed and reviewed 35 case-controlled studies with data for adults 60 years old and older. [The Lancet Infectious Diseases]
Researchers at UC Irvine have created a critically-needed rapid test for diagnosing bloodstream infections. The diagnostic separates blood into billions of droplets, tags them with fluorescent dye, then uses 3D imaging to quickly count and find out what infection is present, without need for time-consuming processes currently used. [Nature Communication]
