March 28, 2014
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan and Thomas P. Van Boeckel drew attention to the importance of collecting data on antibiotic consumption, commenting last week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on a study tracking antibiotic use in non-EU European countries (published in the same journal). Systematic, regular data on antibiotic consumption can have many uses, they wrote. Much greater work is needed on assessing the determinants of antibiotic consumption. In the USA, spatial variations in antibiotic prescribing have been attributed to socioeconomic and cultural differences that affect patient demand or physician prescribing, such as the use of childcare centres, access to health insurance, many competing antibiotic brands, and physicians competing to retain patients.Similar studies are needed in other parts of the world to understand how best to design appropriate stewardship programmes. [CDDEP, MEDIMOON]
Our readers are invited to attend a discussion of Global Health 2035: A world converging within a generation at Duke University on April 1, from 3:30 PM-6:00 PM EST. Attendees will learn about the findings of the report, which was released in December by the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, for which CDDEP serves as Secretariat. Those who cannot attend in person can view the event via webcast. [CDDEP]
Public health officials in the UK have reported the first confirmed cases of cat-to-human transmission of tuberculosis. According to The Guardian, two people were found to have been infected with TB following close contact with cats in the aftermath of an outbreak involving nine animals in the UK last year. [The Guardian]
The number of community-acquired infections caused by ESBL-producing bacteria, which are resistant to a number of antibiotics, is on the rise, according to research by Rhode Island Hospital researchers. [Infection Control Today]
In line with a request issued by the US Food and Drug Administration in December, 25 (out of 26) pharmaceutical companies are phasing out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animals used for meat. Some public health experts are skeptical about this reported change, predicting that the drugs will be used in the same way, but for the contended purpose of disease prevention rather than growth promotion. [Huffington Post, NY Times]
As the P. falciparum malaria parasite is building resistance to artemisinin, scientists are racing to find an effective replacement drug. [CNN ]
The Guardian hosted a discussion on how new antibiotic development could be encouraged – especially for diseases of poverty that have seen increases in bacterial resistance against antibiotics used to treat them. [The Guardian]
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Image via CDC.
