Women having a non-emergency caesarean birth have double the risk of illness or even death compared to a vaginal birth, according to a study from Latin America published today on bmj.com.
Pennsylvania, US is a National leader in curbing spread of healthcare-associated infections. Pennsylvania health department suggests measures to reduce the spread of ‘MRSA’, superbug hospital infections.
Researchers have discovered a strain of bacteria resistant to all approved drugs used to fight ear infections in children, according to an article published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). A pair of pediatricians discovered the strain because it is their standard practice to perform an uncommon procedure called tympanocentesis (ear tap) on children when several antibiotics fail to clear up their ear infections. The procedure involves puncturing the child’s eardrum and draining fluid to relieve pressure and pain. Analyzing the drained fluid is the only way to describe the bacterial strain causing the infection.
Improvements to the technology infrastructure for researching and developing new biopharmaceuticals would be expected to save the industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to a new economic study sponsored by NIST.
In this retrospective cohort study that included 852 primary care physicians in Quebec, international medical graduates, physicians with high practice volumes and those who were in practice longer were more likely to prescribe antibiotics inappropriately.
GlaxoSmithKline and Anacor Pharmaceuticals announced that they have entered into a worldwide strategic alliance for the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel medicines for viral and bacterial diseases. The collaboration provides GlaxoSmithKline access to Anacor’s proprietary boron-based chemistry for use against selected targets.
A new review of inpatient data from US hospitals shows that the number of infections caused by a common bacterium increased by over 7 percent each year from 1998 to 2003. The attendant economic burden to hospitals increased by nearly 12 percent annually.
The bacterium that causes a highly contagious and sometimes deadly form of diarrhea is frequently carried by persons who do not have any of the disease symptoms, according to a study in the Oct. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.
We can only get folate, an important B vitamin, from food or supplements, but bacteria can make it themselves. Recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins University identified a long-sought enzyme that completes our scientific understanding of folate production in E. coli bacteria and offers a possible new target for antibiotic medications.
A human peptide that acts as a natural antibiotic against invading microbes can also bind to the body’s own DNA and trigger an immune response in the absence of an infection, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in an early online publication in Nature.