Antibiotics

In late February, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its first list of Priority Pathogens, for which research and development is strongly needed. Not included on the list is tuberculosis, which has been acknowledged as one of the leading killers around the world. Naturally, many individuals working in public health and infectious disease are objecting to the exclusion.

In case you missed them, here is a round-up of the top 5 articles for the week of March 5, 2017.

The new WHO list makes a clearcut line-up of offending organisms; however, the list is truly a call to arms for those hoping to prevent the antibiotic apocalypse.

From pets at home to SeaWorld's main attraction, the threat of antimicrobial resistance in domesticated animals is flying under the radar amid concerns for livestock and human resistance.

Robin Jump, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the Case Western Reserve University sat down with Contagion™ to discuss up-and-coming prevention methods for C. diff in the hospital setting.

Did you read this week’s top infectious disease news coverage from Contagion®?

As we await novel compounds from a relatively apathetic industry, we are resurrecting antibiotics of which we have an outdated understanding. and that carry the potential for substantial side effects: polymyxins.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published, for the first time, a priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that urgently need new antibiotics.

The results of a new study show that taking antibiotics for traveler’s diarrhea could increase the risk of acquiring an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL) infection.

The US Food and Drug Administration just announced that it is allowing the marketing of a new test kit for bloodstream infections.

The European Union Horizon Prize was awarded to MINICARE HNL last week for a “finger prick test” that allows for rapid detection and diagnosis of bacterial infections in under ten minutes.

Recent studies suggest that post-operative prophylactic antibiotics following a C-section delivery may assist in the prevention of surgical site infections.

Certain antibiotics can invade drug-resistant bacteria by using brute force at the surface level.

Madeline King, PharmD, assistant professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of the Sciences, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, explains for which infections ceftazidime-avibactam is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has recently reported that, last year, a local resident was found to have an antibiotic-resistant strain of Escherichia coli with the colistin resistance gene, MCR-1.

Contagion® is celebrating it’s one-year anniversary today, February 7, 2017. As we hit this milestone, we wanted to look back and remember the three articles that launched Contagion® on this day in 2016.

The rise of the mcr-1 gene highlights the hurdles against the bigger fight that is antimicrobial resistance

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and medical technology industry partners have announced new efforts to better diagnose bacterial infections at the recent World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) plans to fund research projects designed to discover and develop new antibiotics to treat these troublesome bacteria.

While we look to emerging infectious disease outbreaks and the threat of biological weapons, it's easy to forget the responsibilities of our domestic research.

A new agent in the antibiotic pipeline, cefiderocol, has proved to be effective against complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs).

Researchers from the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands, examine the cost-effectiveness of the most commonly used treatments for community-acquired pneumonia.

Researchers from Massachusetts have found that carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae have more genetic traits that enable antibiotic-resistance than previously thought and these traits are easily transferred among species.

An initiative from the Veterans Health Administration to reduce methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other healthcare-associated infections in the facilities has led to marked infection reduction around the country.

Researchers from the University of Bristol have revealed the structural and mechanistic basis of transferable colistin resistance conferred by the MCR-1 gene.

Elizabeth Nolan, PhD, and her team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently explored the fight between microbes and hosts over essential metals and how understanding this battle may open the door for alternate treatments for bacterial infections.

University of Connecticut researchers have developed novel antibiotic compounds to target methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections, offering a potential new drug in the fight against this pathogen.

Researchers uncover high rates of co-infections in patients who are admitted to hospitals with influenza.

With cases of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea on the rise, researchers from the University of York may have made a breakthrough in the quest to find treatments that work.

Research on a patient with acute myeloid leukemia has revealed new information on how bacteria mutate to survive antibiotics.