Weekly Digest: Antibiotic stewardship program effective at limiting MRSA, Fast food companies fail on antibiotic report card

–Quartz: “The frightening spread of antibiotic resistance around the world, visualized”

–Mother Jones: “Antibiotics are Spreading Like Crazy—And a Lot of Them Are About to Stop Working”

–CIDRAP: “Report notes alarming rates of antibiotic resistance”

–The Observer editorial (report cited): “The Observer view on the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant infections”

“We’ve been thinking as a society that antibiotics are basically free, that we can take them wherever we want. I think that we’ve been living in a kind of bubble for the past 70 years. I include myself. Like most physicians, I didn’t consider that there might be other costs to prescribing antibiotics.” That was Martin Blaser, chair of the newly-minted President’s Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (CARB), in an interview with WIRED. Blaser also discussed the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, how antibiotics do collateral damage to the microbiome and questions the Advisory Council might consider .The inaugural CARB meeting will be open to the public and webcast online at 9am EDT on September 29. CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan is a CARB member. More information on the meeting is available online. [WIRED, US Department of Health and Human Services]

Few U.S. fast food chains have adequately addressed overuse of antibiotics in their food supply, according to an antibiotic use “scorecard” test in a new report issued by 25 environmental and consumer advocacy organizations. The “Chain Reaction” report, issued by the National Resources Defense Council, Keep Antibiotics Working, Center for Food Safety and other organizations, focused on policies related to antibiotics important in human medicine in the fast food chains’ meat products, as well as companies’ transparency about their policies. Five of 24 companies surveyed got a passing grade: McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Dunkin Donuts, Panera and Chipotle. [Washington Post]

A highly-resistant gonorrhea strain has triggered a national alert in the United Kingdom.  Twelve cases of highly-resistant gonorrhea have been confirmed in Leeds, with four additional cases reported in other parts of the UK since March. The strain is resistant to azithromycin, an important component of treatment, usually used in combination with ceftriaxone. Patients have reported sexual contacts from across England, suggesting possible continued spread. [BBC]

Antibiotic stewardship programs linked to large and sustained reductions in MRSA cases in Scotland. A national campaign that included restricting the use of “4C antibiotics”  (cephalosporins, co-amoxiclav, clindamycin, and fluoroquinolones) and macrolide antibiotics; a hand hygiene campaign; hospital environment inspections; and MRSA admission screening resulted in halving the burden of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hospitals and in the community. The analysis was based on 1.2 million hospital admissions in Northern Scotland.  [CIDRAP, The Lancet]

Humans carry a cloud of unique, airborne microbes around with them, leaving a “microbial fingerprint” behind. A study published in PeerJ compared microbes collected from eight sanitized rooms, each with one person, to identical empty rooms. Each participant had his or her own microbial population, also distinct from the empty rooms. The researchers speculate that each person’s microbial cloud mixes with others’, creating unique microbiomes. [Science News, PeerJ]

Serum Institute of India, Asia’s largest vaccine manufacturing company, is looking to fast-track development of a dengue vaccine. The announcement comes as India faces its largest dengue outbreak in several years. As of September 15, twice as many cases have been reported compared with the same time last year, although the increase may be a result of  improved surveillance rather than a true increase in the number of cases. If the vaccine is launched, it will become the first globally available dengue vaccine. [Reuters, The Lancet]

A new strategy to combat Clostridium difficile infections without antibiotics might target a major virulence factor. The treatment targets a protein in major virulence factor toxin B, one of responsible for C. diff tissue damage. The compound, ebselen, currently in human trials for an unrelated condition, reduced C. diff pathology in mice. Work in humans has yet to begin, but the fact that it is being tested in humans for another purpose could speed development of a C. diff application.  [Infection Control Today, Science  Translational Medicine]

Efforts to control malaria have prevented over 660 million cases of the disease in the last 15 years, according to a report published in Nature. The widespread distribution of bednets is the primary contributor to the decline, with contributions from artemisinin treatment and home insecticide spraying. Substantial work still remains, however: the rate at which infections are falling has slowed—it now hovers around 5 percent per year down from 9 percent in 2011.  [BBC, Nature]

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