May 31, 2015
A weekly roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
Delegates at the sixty-eighth session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted a resolution endorsing a global action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The five objectives are: Increasing awareness, strengthening research and surveillance, reducing infections, optimizing antimicrobial use, and ensuring sustainable investments to contain AMR. Member States are urged to adopt national AMR action plans, aligned with the global plan, within two years, including both human and animal use of antimicrobials. [WHO]
The European Parliament adopted a resolution to tackle AMR. The resolution includes measures to ensure that antibiotics are used appropriately by strictly prohibiting antibiotics without prescription, requiring microbiological diagnosis before prescribing, preventing conflicts of interest between producers and prescribers, and improving surveillance of antimicrobial use, resistance and infection control. [EurActiv]
Other WHA resolutions: immunization and malnutrition. The immunization resolution calls for improved access to affordable vaccines, noting that progress toward the 2012 Global Vaccine Action Plan’s target has been slow and patchy. The Assembly endorsed the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and a Framework for Action that urges governments to ensure that all people have access to healthier and more sustainable diets. The WHO Secretariat, criticized heavily for its poor performance during the Ebola epidemic, was asked to implement structural reforms to prepare and respond rapidly to emergencies. [WHO, WHO]
According to results of multi-country clinical trial, HIV-infected individuals should start taking antiretroviral drugs as soon as possible to significantly lower the risk of AIDS. Conducted in 215 sites in 35 countries, the Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment (START) study is the first large-scale randomized clinical trial that set out to establish when to start treatment. Early treatment reduced the risk of serious illness or death by 53 percent compared to those who started treatment later. [NIH, NY Times]
A new free online tool developed by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine quickly determines the best drug for tuberculosis (TB) patients. With “TB Profiler”, users upload raw DNA sequence data, and the tool profiles the strain type and predicts resistance to 11 TB drugs within minutes, significantly shorter than the weeks or months required for traditional lab-based methods. [LSHTM News]
Significant drug shortages occurred in the US during 2001-2013. According to a new study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, there were shortages of 148 antibiotics during this period, with a dramatic increase since 2007. Some antibiotics needed to treat multidrug-resistant infections were on the list. [Clinical Infectious Diseases]
The first entries for the Longitude Prize will be accepted on May 31. The Longitude Prize will award £10 million to the research group that develops “a cost-effective, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use” diagnostic test to identify when and which antibiotics are needed at the point of care. CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan is the Longitude Prize’s newest adviser. [Longitude Prize (Blog)]
High temperatures have claimed the lives of about 2,000 people in India. Heat waves have caused dehydration and heat stroke, resulting in a surge of emergency admissions in the country’s hospitals. Speaking to the Financial Times, CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan said that such extreme weather events were early signs of climate change. [Financial Times]
Live anthrax bacteria has been inadvertently shipped by the US military. The US Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah sent live samples of Bacillus anthracis to 24 labs in 11 US states, South Korea and Australia. While the Pentagon has said that there are no known risks to the general public, four lab workers in three US states are on antibiotics, as a precaution to prevent the potentially fatal illness. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work has ordered a comprehensive review of Department of Defense “laboratory procedures, processes, and protocols associated with inactivating spore-forming anthrax.” Both the Pentagon and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) are investigating. [DoD, USA Today, BBC]
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