The MCR-1 resistance gene, which has now been detected in at least 20 countries and renders bacteria resistant to the last-resort antibiotic colistin, poses a "substantial public health risk" to the European Union and must be combatted on a range of fronts, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said today in its latest rapid risk assessment.
Initiatives are aimed to further knowledge of the microbiome's benefit to human life and planetary function.
The agency warned clinicians that the serious side effects outweigh the benefits for simple infections.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two asymptomatic MERS-CoV cases today related to a healthcare cluster in Buraydah that now includes 19 cases. The agency also noted that three previously reported patients died from their infections, including two in Buraydah.
Wisconsin health officials are investigating an outbreak of 44 bloodstream infections in mostly older patients, with 18 deaths, caused by a bacterium called Elizabethkingia anophelis, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) announced yesterday.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two more MERS cases today, both of which occurred in Riyadh.
The first patient is a 53-year-old Saudi man who is in stable condition, the MOH said. The other patient is a 24-year-old foreigner who is hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU).
A team led by Duke University researchers has developed a gene-detecting test that could help physicians determine whether an acute respiratory infection (ARI) is caused by a virus or a bacterium, which could reduce antibiotic overprescribing, according to a study yesterday in Science Translational Medicine.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has replaced its longtime head of national lab regulation after a series of key lab safety breaches involving bioterror pathogens like Bacillus anthracis—which causes anthrax—and H5N1 avian flu viruses, USA Today reported yesterday.
A live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) candidate for H7N9 avian flu produced a good immune response and was shown safe in a phase 1 human trial, researchers from Russia and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today noted that it has received reports of 43 cases of an especially resistant form of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in recent years, often among patients who traveled internationally, according to a report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
