Drug Resistance

In what some are hailing as the most important development in HIV therapy in a decade, two new classes of drugs have been found to block virus replication in patients resistant to existing drugs, researchers said Tuesday.

The new study about drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus found in meat and poultry samples certainly sounds alarming -- such bacteria can cause serious infections in humans and can even lead to death. But consumers face a relatively small direct threat from the bacteria in food, and a few simple precautions should provide short-term peace of mind. Long-term peace of mind may take longer. It does seem possible that the meat industry is contributing to antibiotic resistance in some way. The FDA was concerned enough last year to urge that the meat industry use antibiotics only when necessary.

Bedbugs leave their victims with itchy red welts, but they haven’t been considered much of a threat when it comes to the spread of disease. A new report calls that assumption into question. Researchers have now found antibiotic-resistant bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients in Vancouver, Canada. On one patient, researchers found three bedbugs carrying methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, a bacterium resistant to many common antibiotics.  On two patients, they found a bedbug with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium , or VRE, another bacterium resistant to common antibiotics.  The report was published online before being printed in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases .  The researchers hasten to point out that there is no, repeat, no evidence linking bedbugs to disease transmission.

Outbreaks of potentially deadly drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis could become increasingly hard to combat as they spread among AIDS victims and others with weakened immune systems, an expert said. Outbreaks already have occurred in New York City, Michigan, Florida and in the New York state prison system. Dr.

A large outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis has been detected among the homeless in shelters in Boston, according to a report published Friday. The outbreak has prompted federal health officials to call for efforts to detect and prevent the spread of the disease, the Boston Globe reported.

Bacteria that cause gonorrhea are quickly developing resistance to another antibiotic, and the world may be running out of drugs to cure this common venereal disease, Army doctors said. Their dire warning was based on recent findings that 8% of servicemen infected with gonorrhea in South Korea had strains of the germ that could withstand spectinomycin, a relatively new drug against the venereal disease.

A new compound that is effective against drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis could be an extra weapon against the disease, Seattle scientists report in today's Nature. PA-824, a drug developed by biotechnology company PathoGenesis Corp., has a different molecular target than TB treatments currently in use. Laboratory experiments and tests on mice and guinea pigs have proven its effectiveness, the researchers said.

Deadly drug-resistant staph infections -- rarely seen in patients a decade ago -- have become the leading type of skin infections treated in emergency rooms, scientists reported Wednesday. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine was the first to demonstrate the extent to which drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has spread throughout the U.S. The bacterium accounted for 59% of skin infections in the study, researchers said, with ranges of 15% in New York City to 74% in Kansas City, Mo.

Even with tuberculosis cases falling sharply in the United States to historic lows, strains of drug-resistant disease are gaining ground elsewhere in the world. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that TB prevalence in this country dropped 11.8% last year, the largest yearly decline since the government began monitoring the disease in 1953. But on the same day, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 440,000 people worldwide had multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in 2008, and a third of them died.