Weekly Digest: White House diverts additional $81 million to Zika efforts; Minnesota implements One Health antibiotic stewardship plan

A weekly roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.

The White House has diverted an additional $81 million to Zika efforts, away from biomedical research, antipoverty and health care programs, toward the development of a Zika vaccine. An April shift of $589 million from Ebola efforts to address Zika is set to run out by the end of the month, according to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell, prompting the Obama administration to take immediate action. Congress has been in a deadlock since earlier this year, with legislation blocked first by Republicans objecting to the level of funding called for by the legislation, then by Democrats, after Republicans had attached measures preventing access to contraception. Ms. Burwell wrote, “The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays.” [New York Times]

Minnesota five-year antibiotic stewardship plan takes One Health approach, coordinating the efforts of Minnesota’s Departments of Health and Agriculture, as well as the Board of Animal Health and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). The interdisciplinary approach is based in the concept of One Health, involving the wellbeing of animals, humans, and the environment. The primary goals include promoting a better understanding of One Health antibiotic stewardship across disciplines, improving stewardship efforts in human and animal health, and developing an antibiotic “footprint” tool to assess the persistence of antibiotics in the environment. According to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, state officials hope the measures will relieve tension between human and animal health experts and become a model for addressing antibiotic resistance. [CIDRAP, One Health Minnesota Antibiotic Stewardship Strategic Plan]

Climate change is responsible for the increasing spread of ocean-borne bacterial illnesses. According to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climate change has directly influenced the spread of Vibrio infections, common in warm coastal regions. The more than 100 Vibrio species, including the bacteria that cause cholera, are responsible for 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths in the United States each year according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Based on 133 archived plankton samples collected during the last half-century at nine locations, including the North Sea, Iberian coast, and North Atlantic, Vibrio abundance is directly correlated with water temperature in the North Atlantic, which has warmed up to about 1.5 degrees Celsius over the past 54 years. [UMD, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]

Multidrug resistant Shigella infections have increased among gay men in recent outbreaks, according to a paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Of 32 shigellosis outbreaks from 2011 to 2015, nine clusters were resistant to ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, or azithromycin, or to more than one of those antibiotics. While shigellosis is most common among young children, most cases of multidrug resistant shigellosis occur in men who have sex with men (MSM). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 103 shigellosis infections in Oregon alone from July 2015 through June 2016, 75 percent of them in men, half of whom identified as MSM. All of 48 isolates tested were resistant to ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (co-trimoxazole), and 13 were resistant to azithromycin. [CIDRAP, Emerging Infectious Diseases, CDC]

Cargill Inc. will stop using gentamicin in its two largest turkey brands, while other food companies face pressure from consumers to reduce antibiotic use. As the number of human infections from antibiotic resistant bacteria increases, consumer advocates are asking food companies to stop use of antibiotics critical in human medicine. Currently, more than 70 percent of medically important antibiotics in the United States are used in the production of livestock and poultry.  An alliance of consumer groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, will deliver a petition signed by more than 350,000 to Yum! Brands to stop routine use of antibiotics by companies that supply its chicken, representing Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, among others. The McDonald’s Corp announced last week that they had removed antibiotics important in human medicine from chicken production for its U.S. restaurants, and is facing added pressure, led by ShareAction from the United Kingdom, to broaden their antibiotics ban to global operations. [Reuters, Fortune]