The hunt for new antibiotics
“The world is on the brink of losing these miracle cures,” WHO announced in 2011. It sounded like the farewell to a generation of familiar, dependable antibiotics after more than half a century of service.
In some countries that brink has already been crossed, said Laura Piddock, director of the UK-based initiative, Antibiotic Action, and founder of the Antimicrobial Agents Research Group at the UK’s Birmingham University.
For too long people have taken for granted that there will be antibiotics to kill the bacteria, but the bacteria have been mutating to develop defences against those very same antibiotics.
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of pneumonia, among many other serious infections. Escherichia coli, or E. coli, is a leading cause of diarrhoeal diseases. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is responsible for many ailments, from minor skin infections to pneumonia, meningitis, toxic shock syndrome and sepsis.
‘Whereas resistance has been addressed for the past four decades by experts in the industrialized world, studies describing the problem and the public health situation in the developing world have lagged behind,’ noted a recent book by the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, at the US-based Tufts University.
As drugs take longer to cure illnesses or are no longer effective, even minor infections can become deadly, wrote a representative from the global pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Source: irinnews.org Read more here.
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