Overuse of antibiotics could raise intestinal disorders as they kill useful bacteria from the body, says a study that found such infection in 16 states of the US. The infection – C. difficile – often strikes older hospital patients treated with antibiotics, reported news portal NorthJersey.com.
C. difficile causes severe diarrhea and other potentially life-threatening complications. But scientists say it has also begun spreading among people of all ages even who have not been hospitalised or used antibiotics. “The widespread use of antibiotics, particularly their inappropriate use, has contributed to the increased incidence of C. difficile,” the researchers said. “It’s important that people do not take them unnecessarily or demand them from doctors.”
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Posted: February 6th, 2010
A pattern of escalating antimicrobial resistance in the United States and other countries highlights the need to improve education about judicious antibiotic use, promote better infection control, improve systems used to determine susceptible organisms and create antibiotic regimens that will cover the broadest range of organisms, according to a speaker at the 2010 Annual Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance in Bethesda, Md.
“Combination chemotherapy will become the rule of practice as we wait for the development of new compounds and vaccines,” Ronald N. Jones, MD, of JMI Laboratories in North Liberty, Iowa, told a group of physicians at the meeting. “Maybe the future of infectious disease management is not new classes of drugs, but new classes of chemicals that attack the resistance mechanisms that are already in place.”
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Posted: February 2nd, 2010