BD, Accelerate announce collaboration on rapid ID, susceptibility tests
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and Accelerate Diagnostics yesterday announced a commercial collaboration agreement to bring rapid identification and antibiotic susceptibility tests to more clinicians and patients worldwide.
Under the agreement, BD will market and sell through its global sales network the Food and Drug Administration–approved Accelerate Pheno system, which delivers rapid pathogen identification and antibiotic susceptibility test results from blood cultures 1 to 2 days faster than traditional laboratory methods. The agreement also covers the Accelerate Arc module.
The companies say the two testing systems will help clinicians determine faster whether a patient needs an antibiotic, and if so, which one they need.
"When a patient is very sick, every minute matters," Brooke Story, MBA, president of Integrated Diagnostic Solutions for BD, said in a press release. "Through our collaboration with Accelerate Diagnostics, we can help clinicians more quickly, efficiently and effectively treat patients, which may lead to a reduction in health care costs and help slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance."
Aug 15 Accelerate Diagnostics press release
Survey reveals low antibiotic knowledge, improper antibiotic use in China
The overall level of antibiotic knowledge in China is low, and inappropriate use of antibiotics is high, according to the results of a survey published last week in BMC Infectious Diseases.
The online survey, conducted from July through September 2018, was used to collect data from respondents in China on antibiotic use and related knowledge. While non-prescription antibiotic sales are illegal in China, the practice is common, and inappropriate antibiotic use has long been widespread. The survey focused on three aspects of inappropriate antibiotic use: self-medication with antibiotics (SMA), self-storage with antibiotics (SSA), and non-adherence to antibiotic treatment (NAAT). Logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with these inappropriate behaviors.
Of the 15,526 respondents, more than 55% could not correctly identify whether antibiotics were used to treat bacterial or viral infections, and 57.6% could not distinguish antibiotics from anti-inflammatory agents. Overall, 26.0%, 46.6% and 27.4% of the participants had high, medium, and low levels of antibiotic knowledge, respectively.
Regarding inappropriate use, 37.1% reported SMA, 67.9% reported SSA, and 53.3% reported NAAT in the past 6 months. A breakdown of the four types of non-adherence behaviors showed that 48.3%, 15.2%, 25.5%, and 78.0% of respondents said that they had missed antibiotics, increased antibiotic dosage, decreased antibiotic dosage, and discontinued antibiotics once symptoms disappeared, respectively.
After adjusting for other variables, multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that respondents aged 30 to 44 years (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.36; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.26 to 1.47), with higher levels of education (aOR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.29), poor status of self-perceived health (aOR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.38 to 1.80), and medium (aOR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.15) or low (aOR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.28 to 1.54) levels of antibiotic knowledge were more likely to report SMA, SSA, and NAAT.
The study authors say the results indicate an urgent need for a national action plan and effective public health strategies to address the widespread inappropriate use of antibiotics in China.
Aug 13 BMC Infect Dis study
