Antimicrobials News

As was recently reported in the fifth edition of the Chain Reaction report, more than a dozen of the top 20 restaurant chains in the United States received failing grades for antibiotic use in beef — a sign that the industry must expand its commitment to address the overuse of antibiotics, experts suggested.

I fell in love with immunology as a first-year medical student at Harvard in a class taught by the Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Baruj Benacerraf. It was the mid-1980s, and the HIV epidemic was emerging in all its perplexing horror, the virus devastating the immune system through unknown means. I had friends who were stigmatized and dying from HIV, which made it personal. When I was a third-year medical student in 1987, Chip Schooley was my ID attending. He was involved in clinical trials to treat HIV as well as laboratory research to understand HIV immunology. His brilliance and passion for patient care and research were inspiring, and that is when I became hooked on ID! I decided then that I would dedicate my career to fighting the HIV epidemic through clinical care and research to unravel how HIV evades and depletes the immune system. I was fortunate that Chip recruited me to perform my ID fellowship at the University of Colorado and then to join the faculty. Although there were many challenges, the path has been fulfilling. I would encourage anyone who wishes to pursue an academic career in ID to focus on what they think is important and find good mentors!

In recent years, there has been a trending rise in STDs in the United States, forcing experts to look for alternative prevention strategies. Infectious Disease News asked David C. Harvey, MSW, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, to weigh in on one such strategy — the use of doxycycline as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.

According to new figures published by the CDC, reported cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia hit approximately 2.4 million in 2018 — the fifth straight record-breaking year for STDs in the United States.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection produced by spirochetes in the genus Leptospira. Leptospira are aerobic but are difficult to cultivate and take many days to grow. They stain poorly with Gram’s stain and are best visualized with silver stain, dark field microscopy or fluorescent microscopy.

Much of published antimicrobial stewardship literature has focused on reducing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy. However, in addition to the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, prolonged antimicrobial use is also associated with the development of antimicrobial resistance. Durations of therapy often are determined upon discharge, and this transition period has not been a focus of many antimicrobial stewardship interventions.

World Antibiotic Awareness Week is being recognized this year from Nov. 18 to 24. Launched in 2015, the campaign “aims to increase global awareness of antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance,” according to WHO.

An analysis of more than 1.1 million urgent care encounters in a large health care network revealed an “intense” variation in their antibiotic prescribing practices, according to a recent study. Researchers said the data can help to inform and improve stewardship programs.

Shionogi won FDA approval for Fetroja for the treatment of complicated UTIs, or cUTIs, in adults with limited or no alternative treatment options.

According to newly updated estimates published by the CDC, more than 2.8 million infections are caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens annually in the United Sates, resulting in at least 35,000 deaths. That is one infection every 11 seconds and one death every 15 minutes.