Antibiotic

A group of biomedical engineers and medical students calling themselves HIVE developed an innovative solution to help patients and doctors optimize outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy, or OPAT, landing them the $10,000 top prize at this year’s IDWeek IDea Incubator competition.

Although the current approach to incentivizing antibiotic development has led to the creation of effective treatments, the pipeline has collapsed numerous times, leaving clinicians stranded against increasingly resistant infections, according to an article published the Annals of Internal Medicine.

It is still common for antibiotics to be dispensed without a prescription at community pharmacies throughout China, though the practice is less prevalent in chain pharmacies, in urban areas and in places where a pharmacist is on duty, according to a recently published study.

WASHINGTON — The investigational microbiota-based drug, RBX2660, safely and effectively prevented recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection, or rCDI, and demonstrated clinical durability 2 years after treatment, according to findings from the PUNCH open-label study presented at IDWeek.

WASHINGTON — Multidrug-resistant Salmonella was detected twice as often in samples of meat from conventionally-raised chicken and turkeys compared with antibiotic-free or organic poultry, according to findings from a study conducted in Pennsylvania.

DENVER — At the Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meeting, William T. Obremskey, MD, spoke about the use of local antibiotics in orthopedic trauma patients for infection prevention or treatment. He said local antibiotics may provide long-term infection prevention.

The prevalence of lower airway infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Haemophilus influenzae among young children with cystic fibrosis has decreased significantly during the past 2 decades, according to a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a major public health issue. Bacterial diseases we used to successfully treat with antibiotics are re-emerging as serious threats, killing an estimated 700,000 people each year, a number that is predicted to reach 10 million by 2050. If the AMR challenge is not solved by then, the cost associated with it will run into an estimated $100 trillion dollar expenditure.

CMS recently issued a final rule that will change the way hospitals will get reimbursed for new antimicrobial therapies, potentially removing some barriers to their use.

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2020, all ambulatory health care organizations accredited by the Joint Commission that regularly prescribe antimicrobial agents will be required to abide by newly established antimicrobial stewardship requirements.