Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The Missing Piece In The Antibiotic Resistance Battle: How Superbugs Become Superbugs
Stat: Scientists Seek A Way To Predict Antibiotic Resistance
Tim van Opijnen has an unusual library. Instead of books, it holds over 10,000 mutant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, each with a gene disabled — though a different one than its neighbor. By knocking out a single gene, van Opijnen’s lab at Boston College is trying to understand individual genes’ importance and function in the presence of an antibiotic. His choice of bacterium is intentional: there are 1.2 million drug-resistant pneumococcal infections per year in the US, joining several other species of bacteria that are growing in immunity to antibiotic treatment. (Love, 11/7)
Stat: New Superbug, Candida Auris, Detected In The US
Just five months after federal health officials asked hospitals and physicians to be on the lookout for an often-fatal, antibiotic-resistant fungus called Candida auris, 13 cases have been reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday. It is the first time that the fungus, which is easily misidentified in lab tests as a more common candida yeast infection, has been found in the US, and four of the first seven patients with it have died. (Begley, 11/4)
Kaiser Health News: Deadly Superbug Linked To Four Deaths In The U.S.
A deadly new drug-resistant fungus has been linked to the deaths of four hospital patients in the U.S., according to a report released Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fungus, called Candida auris, preys on the sickest patients and can spread in hospitals. Although doctors have been concerned about the spread of antibiotic-resistant bugs for many years, this fungus is relatively new on the world scene. (Szabo, 11/4)
