Fw: Supergerm Beats New Antibiotic After Only 1 Year!

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From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 10:22 AM

Subject: Supergerm Beats New Antibiotic After Only 1 Year!

> Supergerm Beats New Antibiotic

>

> By EMMA ROSS

> .c The Associated Press

>

> LONDON (July 19) - In a frustrating development in the battle against

> drug-resistant bacteria, scientists report the first entirely new type of

> antibiotic in 35 years has been beaten by the staph supergerm little more

than

> a year after being introduced.

>

> Researchers at Harvard Medical School describe in The Lancet medical

journal

> this week how an 85 year-old man on dialysis came down with a staph

infection

> in the lining of his intestines that was not vulnerable to the new drug,

Zyvox.

> It is the first report of staph resistance to the medicine.

>

> Experts said that while the finding is disappointing, it isn't

surprising -

> they have learned to expect the unpredictable from crafty bacteria - and

the

> drug still should be able to help many people.

>

> ``It's a heads up that you have to keep an eye on it,'' said Dr. Jane

> Ferraro, director of microbiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in

Boston,

> who found the resistant strain. ``It was only a matter of time. Whether or

not

> it's going to become prevalent, or whether this is going to be a rare

thing, we

> can't predict.''

>

> Staphylococcus aureus is considered the most successful of all bacterial

germs

> because it produces such a wide range of infections in so many people.

>

> It is the leading cause of infections acquired in hospitals worldwide and

> causes ailments ranging from boils and urinary tract infections to toxic

shock

> syndrome and pneumonia.

>

> Half of all staph that circulates in hospitals is resistant to meticillin,

the

> standard drug used to treat it. Now it is developing resistance to the

main

> reserve drug, the antibiotic vancomycin.

>

> In a bid to slow resistance, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

> Prevention now advise doctors to refrain from using vancomycin unless

> absolutely necessary. Consequently, Zyvox is becoming more widely used in

the

> United States.

>

> ``We may discover, within the course of the next few months that (using

Zyvox

> so widely) is untenable, but we don't know at this stage,'' said Dr.

> Finch, a professor of infectious diseases at Nottingham University in

England

> who was involved in the testing of the new drug.

>

> Zyvox is a synthetic chemical designed to fight germs at a different point

in

> their life cycle than any other antibiotic. It stops bacteria from making

> protein, which in turn stops their growth, so the body's immune system can

step

> in and finish them off.

>

> Known chemically as linezolid, it is the first in a long-awaited class of

> antibiotics called oxazolidinones and has arrived just as bacteria are

becoming

> increasingly resistant to vancomycin.

>

> Zyvox was released in the United States in April 2000 and in Britain in

> January. It is not yet available in other countries. So far, 80,000

patients

> have received it, according to the drug's maker, Pharmacia Corp.

>

> ``It's frustrating. So much effort goes into the development of these

drugs -

> huge resources - and one hoped that we would have had a number of years of

> successful use of this agent,'' because it was different from older

> antibiotics, Finch said. ``It's disturbing and it means we've got to keep

> looking for new approaches.''

>

> A handful of drugs belonging to this new class are in the pipeline,

experts

> said.

>

> AP-NY-07-19-01 1901EDT

>

>

>