January 16, 2015
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
Volume 1, issue 1 of the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) newsletter, GARPNet News, was published this week. The bimonthly digest covers work being done by the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership and is available online. Sign up to receive it here. Also new from GARP this week, two interviews on the CDDEP blog: one with GARP-Kenya coordinator Eveline Wesangula and a second with coordinator Kim Faure of GARP-South Africa. [CDDEP]
Guinea worm cases worldwide have decreased from 3.5 million three decades ago to almost zero today, in large part due to the work of former US President Jimmy Carter. Carter’s foundation, The Carter Center, has been working on eradicating the parasitic disease since 1986, when it was endemic in over 23,000 villages in Africa and Asia. The Center announced this week that just 126 cases were reported in 2014; they see elimination of the final few as a significant but achievable challenge. [The Carter Center]
An early estimate found this season’s flu vaccine is just 23 percent effective against laboratory-confirmed influenza cases, compared to a typical vaccine effectiveness of around 60 percent. CDC researchers wrote this week that such numbers “underscore the need for additional influenza prevention and treatment measures,”, particularly in elderly populations. [CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report]
Mosquitoes live longer and transmit malaria more easily when feeding on blood-containing antibiotics, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications. The researchers gave mosquitoes malaria-infected blood either with or without a mix of commonly-used antibiotics and found that the mosquitoes who fed on antibiotic-infused blood were more likely to become infected with the malaria parasite. [Nature Communications]
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) opened the first Ebola clinic for pregnant women this week, addressing a critical need as the high-risk population has a near zero survival rate for the disease. A recent commentary in BJOG (An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology) reviews the unique challenges of obstetric care for Ebola-infected women. These women who often care for sick family members, have pregnancy-related emergencies that are hard to manage without bodily fluid contact. [Reuters, BJOG]
Reports of avian flu have surfaced on four continents so far this season. Sixteen new human cases of the H7N9 strain were reported in China this week, in addition to two other strains documented on poultry farms in recent months in Taiwan, Japan, Egypt, Nigeria, Germany and Canada. [Outbreak News Today, CIDRAP]
A new study found reduced pediatric antibiotic use in hospitals with formalized antibiotic stewardship programs. The study, published in Pediatrics, examined antibiotic use in 31 freestanding US hospitals and found an overall decline in eight of nine of those with pediatric stewardship programs. Commentary published along with the paper asserted that the progress is a positive sign but there is much work still to be done in the area. [Pediatrics]
The World Health Organization approved a pediatric meningitis A vaccine this week. The drug, MenAfriVac®, is widely touted for being affordable, effective and safe; it has already been used to vaccinate thousands of infants in sub-Saharan Africa over the last four years. [WHO]
Research published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases may help explain the recent spread of Chikungunya in the Western hemisphere. The paper used extensive data from Panama on tiger mosquito travel patterns and found that road networks were the primary dispersal method, rather than organic movement across land. The virus was first noted in Panama in May 2014 and has since continued to spread across the Caribbean and Latin America—the region has now seen over 1.1 million cases. [PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PAHO]
Creative Commons licensed image courtesy PRI.
