Evidence of Increasing Antibiotic Resistance
Soil contains microbes that are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, a finding that could have broad consequences to public health. (iStock)
A team of scientists in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are reporting disturbing evidence that soil microbes have become progressively more resistant to antibiotics over the last 60 years. Surprisingly, this trend continues despite apparent more stringent rules on use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, and improved sewage treatment technology that broadly improves water quality in surrounding environments. Their report appears in ACS’ bi-weekly journal Environmental Science and Technology.
David Graham and colleagues note that, although scientists have known for years that resistance was increasing in clinical situations, this is the first study to quantify the same problem in the natural environment over long time-scales. They express concern that increased antibiotic resistance in soils could have broad consequences to public health through potential exposure through water and food supplies. Their results “imply there may be a progressively increasing chance of encountering organisms in nature that are resistant to antimicrobial therapy.” (more…)
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New Transatlantic Task Force on Global Antibiotic Resistance Threat
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, representing the European Union (EU) Presidency.
Experts on both sides of the Atlantic applaud President Barack Obama and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, representing the European Union (EU) Presidency, for establishing a transatlantic task force to address antibiotic resistance, an urgent and growing problem that threatens patient safety and public health worldwide. During a summit held this week in Washington, D.C., President Obama and Prime Minister Reinfeldt joined forces to address the urgency of the problem and the need for solutions by signing an international agreement that seeks cooperative ways in which the United States and EU countries can help combat the global health crisis.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified antimicrobial resistance as one of the three greatest threats to human health. Antimicrobial drugs are used around the world to fight viral diseases, like 2009 H1N1 influenza; bacterial infections, like Staphylococcus aureus and tuberculosis; parasitic infections, like malaria; and fungal infections. Many of these pathogens are becoming increasingly resistant to antimicrobials. (more…)
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Non-Antibiotic Drugs Could Counter Hospital Infections
When worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) ate the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa that were raised on low levels of phosphates, unexpected large red spots appeared in their intestinal tracts. The worms then died, so researchers dubbed the condition "Red Death." They theorized that providing P. aeruginosa with phosphate would protect weakened or immunosuppressed hospital patients from this lethal pathogen. (Image courtesy of John Alverdy, University of Chicago Medical Center)
Lack of an adequate amount of the mineral phosphate can turn a common bacterium into a killer, according to research to be published in the April 14, 2009, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings could lead to new drugs that would disarm the increasingly antibiotic-resistant pathogen rather than attempting to kill it.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most serious hospital-acquired pathogens. A common cause of lung infections, it is also found in the intestinal tract of 20 percent of all Americans and 50 percent of hospitalized patients in the United States. (more…)
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