May 31, 2013
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
A film series from Aeras, a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of an effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, explores the rising danger of drug-resistant TB. CDDEP director Ramanan Laxminarayan speaks about the spread of resistant TB in part 2 of the series. [Aeras, Scientific American]
An article in The Hindu on a new pathogen testing device that could decrease unnecessary antibiotic use mentions a CDDEP graphic on carbapenem use in India [The Hindu].
A new study on 74,256 patients published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that disinfecting all intensive care unit (ICU) patients substantially reduced the rate of bloodstream infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), than either targeted decolonization or screening and isolation. [NPR, WaPo, CDC, CDC blog]
National Geographic writes on a recent Nature study on mice which finds that mosquitoes, in addition to spreading malaria, also make the malaria parasite less virulent. [National Geographic]
Data on hospital charges for common inpatient services recently released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services show significant differences in hospital charges for the same treatments, even among hospitals in the same areas. [AARP Blog]
A new study by the Infectious Diseases Society of America in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases reports on the progress in the development of new antibiotics against gram-negative bacilli (GNB), adding that this progress remains alarmingly elusive. [CID]
Research published in The Lancet reports that antiviral resistance has emerged with apparent ease in A/H7N9, the new bird flu virus that has already killed 36 people. [BBC]
Eradicating extreme poverty will be central to the UN s post-2015 global development agenda, reports Devex. [Devex]
An article in Healio describes the current challenges posed by antibiotic resistance and discusses best methods to tackle the problem of rising resistance. [Healio]
BBC s Future reports on the possibility of using bio-absorbable electronic circuits that could be implanted into wounds and controlled wirelessly to kill drug-resistant bacteria. [BBC Future]
A New York Times article discusses some innovative strategies that US hospitals are implementing to get doctors and nurses to wash their hands frequently, especially as new Medicare rules that penalize hospitals for preventable infections have come into effect. [NYTimes]
According to research in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, oral antibiotics could play a significant role in the proliferation of antibiotic resistance as oral consumption unnecessarily exposes all of the gut microflora to those antibiotics. [OSU News]
Image via Yale Rosen/Flickr
