June 01, 2012
A round-up of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health
The Incidental Economist examines differences between the House (H.R. 5651) and Senate (S.3187) version of the U.S. FDA prescription drug user fee act (PDUFA), in terms of incentives for new antibiotic development.
ReAct Group publishes a new factsheet examining the global burden of antibiotic resistance. Download it here.
In a sweeping review, the Financial Times offers some concerning insights into the costs and causes of antibiotic resistance worldwide.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration s Center for Veterinary Medicine releases an updated National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) Strategic Plan for 2012-2016. The new NARMS plan includes initiatives to determine the feasibility of a pre-harvest sampling approach for NARMS in dairy and feedlot cattle, poultry, and swine, in addition to samples currently taken from retail meat and carcasses.
The FDA announces that it will appeal a recent ruling mandating a ban on the use of penicillin and two types of tetracycline in animal feed, if the practice is found to be a danger to human health.
ScienceDaily reports on a team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz developing a novel way to fight drug-resistant bacteria in wounds and skin infections using light-activated nitric oxide.
Mike the Mad Biologist blogs about the growing threat of more widespread antibiotic resistance in China.
The Guardian reports on a warning from the Health Protection Agency that gonorrhea infection rates in the UK have climbed 25% between 2010 and 2011, which is especially concerning given the increasing level of drug resistance shown in gonorrhea bacteria.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting R&D proposals for new methods of fighting bioterrorism threats including “purposely engineered antibiotic resistant microbes, reports Business Insider.
A study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology suggests that antibiograms may lose their ability to predict bacterial susceptibility when patients undergo longer hospital stays.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases its Summary of Notifiable Diseases for 2010, including figures for several drug-resistant bacterial infections.
The Economist covers a new study in the journal Veterinary Parasitology that found that sheep and goats in over half of farms in many parts of Brazil, Australia and the U.S. carry antibiotic resistant worms.
A new research study in The Lancet explores how the presence of poor-quality antimalarial drugs in southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa threatens malaria control strategies and contributes to drug resistance.
Image credit: Flickr: Elizabeth Donaghue
