Latest news with #drugresistance
Zawya
23-07-2025
- Health
- Zawya
New Study Reveals Widespread Drug Resistance Across 14 African Countries
Results from a newly published study highlight the growing spread of drug resistance across 14 African countries, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen laboratory testing, data systems, and health planning to tackle hard-to-treat infections. The study, known as the Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP), is the largest of its kind ever conducted in Africa. It was led by a coalition including the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), One Health Trust, and other regional partners. Researchers reviewed more than 187,000 test results from 205 laboratories, collected between 2016 and 2019 across Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Drug resistance occurs when bacteria change in ways that make antibiotics—medicines used to treat infections—less effective. This means that common infections become harder to treat, more expensive to manage, and more likely to spread. The study examined bacteria that commonly cause serious illness, such as E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. One of the most concerning findings was that resistance to a powerful group of antibiotics, known as third-generation cephalosporins, was especially high in Ghana and Malawi. In six countries, more than half of the Staphylococcus aureus samples were resistant to methicillin—an antibiotic commonly used in hospitals. In Nigeria and Ghana, resistance levels exceeded 70%. The research also showed that some groups are more likely to have drug-resistant infections. People over the age of 65 were 28 per cent more likely to have resistant infections than younger adults. Patients already admitted to hospitals had a 24 per cent higher risk, likely due to increased exposure to antibiotics. Previous use of antibiotics was also linked to higher resistance. However, the study also revealed serious gaps. Fewer than 2 per cent of health facilities were equipped to test for bacterial infections, and only 12 per cent of drug resistance records were linked to patient information. Without this kind of data, it is more difficult for health officials to understand how and why resistance is spreading. The quality of data varied between countries. Senegal had the strongest systems, while Sierra Leone struggled with data collection. Many laboratories still use handwritten records, and most lack reliable digital systems. Supported by the UK's Fleming Fund and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the study calls on governments to make drug resistance a national priority by investing in better laboratories, routine testing, and stronger digital systems. Without action, the threat of drug resistance could reverse decades of health and development gains. 'For African countries, AMR remains a wicked and complex problem, leaving countries with a million-dollar question: 'Where do we start from?' This study brings to light groundbreaking AMR data for African countries. We must act now—and together—to address AMR,' said Dr Yewande Alimi, the One Health Unit Lead at Africa CDC. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
NHK
21-07-2025
- Health
- NHK
Researchers: Delayed treatment of bird flu may raise risk of drug-resistance
A group of researchers says delayed treatment of a type of bird flu now spreading on dairy farms in the United States may increase the virus's drug-resistance. The group is led by Professor Kawaoka Yoshihiro of the University of Tokyo Pandemic Preparedness, Infection and Advanced Research Center. It has been studying the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus that has spread rapidly among US dairy cattle since early 2024. There have been reports that the virus appears to have been transmitted from cows to humans in 41 cases. The researchers gave the antiviral drug Xofluza, or baloxavir marboxil, to mice infected with bovine H5N1 virus and examined its efficacy. They say that of the five mice treated with Xofluza from 24 hours after infection, three died within 21 days. They say a Xofluza-resistant virus was found in one dead mouse. The researchers say all five mice that were given Xofluza from 48 hours after infection died. Three of them reportedly had drug-resistant viruses. But the group says none of the mice given the drug starting one hour after infection died, and no drug-resistant viruses were found in them. Professor Kawaoka says there is a possibility that the virus multiplies so quickly that the emergence of drug-resistance might be facilitated. He says there is need to explore ways to respond, such as extending the period of drug administration and increasing dosage, in case humans are infected.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fungal infections are getting harder to treat
Fungal infections are getting harder to treat as they grow more resistant to available drugs, according to research published Wednesday in The Lancet Microbe. The study focused on infections caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, a fungus that is ubiquitous in soil and decaying matter around the world. Aspergillus spores are inhaled all the time, usually without causing any problems. But in people who are immunocompromised or who have underlying lung conditions, Aspergillus can be dangerous. The fungus is one of the World Health Organization's top concerns on its list of priority fungi, which notes that death rates for people with drug-resistant Aspergillus infections range from 47%-88%. The new study found that the fungus' drug resistance is increasing. On top of that, patients are typically infected with multiple strains of the fungus, sometimes with different resistance genes. 'This presents treatment issues,' said the study's co-author, Jochem Buil, a microbiologist at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Buil and his team analyzed more than 12,600 samples of Aspergillus fumigatus taken from the lungs of patients in Dutch hospitals over the last 30 years. Of them, about 2,000 harbored mutations associated with resistance to azoles, the class of antifungals used to treat the infections. Most of them had one of two well-known mutations, but 17% had variations of the mutations. Nearly 60 people had invasive infections — meaning the fungi spread from the lungs to other parts of the body — 13 of which were azole-resistant. In those people, nearly 86% were infected with multiple strains of the fungi, making treatment even more complicated. 'It is an increasingly complicated story and physicians may have trouble identifying whether or not they are dealing with a drug-resistant fungal infection,' said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who wasn't involved with the research. Before treating an Aspergillus fungal infection, doctors look for resistance genes that can give them clues about which drugs will work best. If someone is infected with multiple strains of the same type of fungus, this becomes much less clear-cut. Oftentimes, different strains will respond to different drugs. 'Azoles are the first line of treatment for azole-susceptible strains, but they do not work when a strain is resistant. For those, we need to use different drugs that don't work as well and have worse side effects,' Buil said, adding that some people will require treatment with multiple antifungal drugs at the same time. The findings illustrate a larger trend of growing pressure on the few drugs available to treat fungal infections — there are only three major classes of antifungal drugs, including azoles, that treat invasive infections, compared with several dozen classes of antibiotics. Resistance to such drugs is growing, and new ones are uniquely difficult to develop. Humans and fungi share about half of their DNA, meaning we're much more closely related to fungi than we are to bacteria and viruses. Many of the proteins that are essential for fungi to survive are also essential for human cells, leaving fewer safe targets for antifungal drugs to attack. 'The big problem for all of these fungal species is that we don't have a lot of antifungals,' said Jarrod Fortwendel, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, who was not involved with the research. 'Typically the genetic mutations that cause resistance don't cause resistance to one of the drugs, it's all of them, so you lose the entire class of drugs.' Further complicating matters, the vast majority of azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus stems from agriculture, which widely uses fungicides. The fungicides typically have the same molecular targets as antifungal drugs. Farmers spray them on crops, including wheat and barley in the U.S., to prevent or treat fungal disease. (The first instance of azole resistance was documented in the Netherlands, where antifungals are widely used on tulips.) Aspergillus fungi aren't the target, but exposure to the fungicides gives them a head start developing genes that are resistant to the targets, sometimes before an antifungal drug with the same target even hits the market. This was the source of the vast majority of the drug resistance analyzed in the study. Fortwendel noted that fungal resistance is increasingly found around the world. 'Basically everywhere we look for drug-resistant isotopes, we find them,' he said. 'We are seeing this azole drug-resistance happening throughout the U.S. Those rates will likely climb.' Any individual person's risk of having an azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus is low, Casadevall said. Infections typically affect people who are immunocompromised and amount to around a few thousand cases per year in the U.S., Casadevall said. While relatively uncommon, the bigger risk is the broader trend of drug-resistant fungal infections. 'The organisms that cause disease are getting more resistant to drugs,' he said. 'Even though it's not like Covid, we don't wake up to a fungal pandemic, this is a problem that is worse today than it was five, 10 or 20 years ago.' This article was originally published on
News24
02-06-2025
- Health
- News24
Current gonorrhoea meds might stop working. When will newer ones make it to SA?
Two new antibiotics offer hope for people with gonorrhoea that is resistant to currently available drugs. But it might be years before the people who need these medicines can get them. Spotlight unpacks why these new antibiotics are important and what needs to happen before they can be used in South Africa. Gonorrhoea is a sexually transmitted infection known for its ability to mutate to evade the antibiotics used to treat it quickly. Its symptoms include pain when urinating and genital discharge, but many people don't notice any symptoms at all. If gonorrhoea is not treated, it can cause serious problems, including infertility, chronic pain and complications in babies, who risk developing infections that can cause eye damage and blindness. Gonorrhoea treatment has been a cat-and-mouse game as the bacteria continuously developed resistance against the antibiotics used to treat it. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, the antibiotic ciprofloxacin was used to treat gonorrhoea in South Africa, sometimes combined with another one called doxycycline. However, as high levels of ciprofloxacin resistance emerged, South Africa replaced this course of therapy with a regimen of cefixime and doxycycline. Gonorrhoea treatment was changed again in 2015 due to concerns regarding the emergence of cefixime resistance. The treatment regimen adopted in 2015 remains the standard of care in South Africa and much of the world today. It involves an intermuscular injection of ceftriaxone combined with oral azithromycin pills. However, some countries now recommend using high-dose injectable ceftriaxone on its own due to high levels of azithromycin resistance. While most gonorrhoea cases are still treatable with ceftriaxone, the emergence of ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea has been identified as a significant global health threat. 'The last effective drug we have, ceftriaxone, already indicates increasing gonococcal resistance. Without new antibiotics, we will have no easy treatment options. This is a great concern that will have a major impact in disease control efforts,' warned the World Health Organization (WHO). READ | There's a 'worrying' resurgence of sexually transmitted infections in Gauteng That is why two new antibiotics, zoliflodacin and gepotidacin, are considered a big deal. They are the first new medicines developed for gonorrhoea in over 30 years. Both are in new classes of antibiotics, which is to say they attack the bacterium differently than previous medicines. Because of this, they have little cross-resistance with existing treatments and, therefore, offer essential treatment options for people for whom the old medicines no longer work. How widespread is ceftriaxone-resistance in South Africa? How urgently we need access to the new medicines in South Africa will depend largely on the number of people who are resistant to ceftriaxone. Unfortunately, we don't have a clear picture of drug-resistant gonorrhoea in the country. South Africa introduced a syndromic management approach for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the mid-1990s, as recommended by the WHO. It means that people reporting STI symptoms at health facilities are treated according to their symptoms rather than the results of a lab test. This approach to STIs helps to reduce the cost burden of laboratory diagnosis. It allows for immediate treatment initiation without waiting for laboratory results since some patients are 'lost' over this period as they do not return to health facilities for their test results and treatment. A challenge with treating STIs according to symptoms rather than laboratory results is that many STIs present with similar symptoms. It can lead to misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment, as well as asymptomatic infections going undiagnosed and untreated. Thus, without lab testing, combined with routine STI screening to identify asymptomatic cases, it is difficult to understand the actual burden of gonorrhoea in the country or to measure the extent of drug resistance. A systematic review, however, indicates that while azithromycin resistance is a challenge in South Africa, there was no evidence of ceftriaxone resistance as of 2022. ALSO READ | Increase in STI cases: 'I have slept with more than six girls this month alone' The National Institutes of Communicable Diseases (NICD) classified ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea as a notifiable condition in 2017, meaning that any diagnosed cases must be reported to it. The NICD did not respond to a query from Spotlight as to whether there have been any confirmed cases of ceftriaxone-resistant gonorrhoea in South Africa to date. While South Africa is not yet facing a ceftriaxone-resistance crisis, experts believe it is only a matter of time before this public health challenge reaches our borders, as global cases are increasing and the drug-resistant strain is transmittable. Some access to zoliflodacin Given the risk of a ceftriaxone-resistance crisis, it is essential that the two new antibiotics, zoliflodacin and gepotidacin, become available here as soon as possible. These new antibiotics have quite different histories. Zoliflodacin was developed by GARDP – a non-profit organisation working to accelerate the development of new antibiotics – in collaboration with the private biopharmaceutical company Innoviva. In November 2023, GARDP shared the results of its phase 3 trial of zoliflodacin, which took place in South Africa, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States. It tested the effectiveness of a single dose of oral zoliflodacin compared with the current standard of care treatment for gonorrhoea: an injection of ceftriaxone combined with oral azithromycin. The trial showed that a single dose of zoliflodacin works just as well as the standard of care. The results have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Zoliflodacin has also 'been shown to be active against all multidrug-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (the gonorrhoea bacteria), including those resistant to ceftriaxone, the last remaining recommended antibiotic treatment', GARDP's R&D project leader for STIs, Pierre Daram, told Spotlight. He added that Innoviva is in the process of applying to get the greenlight to use zoliflodacin in the United States. At the same time, GARDP plans to apply for approval in some of its regions, starting with Thailand and South Africa. GARDP is also developing a programme to make the unregistered drug available to patients with no other treatment options. 'The zoliflodacin managed access programme is about to be activated,' Daram said. 'The aim is to provide early access to zoliflodacin, prior to regulatory approval in a country, in response to individual patient requests by clinicians and whereby certain regulatory and clinical criteria are met.' South Africa will be one of the countries covered under this programme, said Daram. He explained that individual patient requests for treatment will be received from treating clinicians through an online platform. 'Based on information provided by the clinician and certain pre-determined regulatory and clinical criteria being met, GARDP will make a case-by-case decision as to whether zoliflodacin will be made available.' Daram added: 'Consideration is given to both clinical and diagnostic criteria for documentation of treatment failure.' Access to gepotidacin remains uncertain Shortly after results for zoliflodacin were announced, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) also shared positive findings for its new antibiotic in treating gonorrhoea. In April 2024, the company reported that a phase 3 trial showed that taking two doses of oral gepotidacin worked as well as the standard treatment. The results of this trial, which was conducted in Australia, Germany, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were published in the Lancet medical journal in May. While gepotidacin represents an important new treatment option for gonorrhoea, there is no indication that it will be available in South Africa soon. ALSO READ | From Cape Town to the US and back home: Epidemiologist Alex de Voux dreams of easy and cheap STI screenings Gepotidacin has not yet been registered for the treatment of gonorrhoea but was approved in March in the United States for treating uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) in women and girls over 12. Thus, the medicine will have a much larger market in the US than if it was only registered for treating gonorrhoea. The price that GSK will charge for gepotidacin has not yet been disclosed, but a spokesperson told Spotlight it is set to be launched in the US in the second half of 2025. '[T]he price in the US will be disclosed when the product will be commercialised,' said the GSK spokesperson. The company did not respond to Spotlight's questions about its plans to register and market gepotidacin in South Africa. What happens next? With the launch of the zoliflodacin managed access programme, clinicians in South Africa will soon be able to apply for the medicine for patients that are resistant to existing drugs. Given that ceftriaxone-resistance is rare in the country, the number of patients in the country that will be eligible for zoliflodacin is likely to be small. Securing broader access to zoliflodacin or gepotidacin, potentially for use as a first-line gonorrhoea treatment, appears to be a long way off. While GARDP is planning to file for registration of zoliflodacin in South Africa, GSK has not indicated whether it will follow suit for gepotidacin. Professor Nigel Garrett, head of HIV pathogenesis and vaccine research at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa, said providing the new antibiotics for first-line gonorrhoea treatment could expand delivery and uptake. The new drugs are both oral tablets and would remove the need for an injection to treat gonorrhoea. If zoliflodacin and gepotidacin are approved and made affordable in South Africa, they could also play a vital role in strengthening the country's efforts to preserve the long-term effectiveness of other antibiotics. Ceftriaxone 'is a really important drug to keep, [to] make sure that there isn't too much resistance against it', Garrett told Spotlight. He explained that the medicine is needed to treat sepsis occurring in hospitals, as well as meningitis.
Telegraph
26-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
First new antibiotic in 50 years to tackle superbug
The first new antibiotic in 50 years to tackle a common superbug will be tested on patients. The drug, which targets one of the bacteria considered to pose the biggest threat to human health, has been hailed as an 'exciting' development in the fight against antibiotic resistance. On Monday, Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, announced that it will take zosurabalpin into the third and last phase of testing on humans. It is the first drug in five decades to show promise of tackling Acinetobacter baumannii, a pathogen which is described as a 'priority' by the World Health Organisation and an 'urgent threat' by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US national public health agency. The drug-resistant bacteria disproportionately impact patients who are in the hospital, causing infections such as pneumonia and sepsis. It is estimated that between 40 and 60 per cent of infected patients, many of whom are immunocompromised because of conditions such as cancer, die as a result of the bug. One of the reasons it is so difficult to treat is that it has a double-walled 'membrane' protecting it from attack, so it is difficult to get drugs into it and to keep them in, experts say. Zosurabalpin, which has been developed alongside researchers at Harvard University, targets the 'machine' which stops the outer membrane from forming properly. It works differently to all existing antibiotics and it is hoped that it could lay the foundations for future drugs. Drug-resistant bacteria Michael Lobritz, global head infectious diseases at Roche, said: 'Our goal is to contribute new innovations to overcome antimicrobial resistance, one of the biggest infectious disease challenges to public health.' The phase-three trial, which it is hoped will start later this year or in early 2026, will look at around 400 patients with a carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii (CRAB) infection who will either receive zosuarbalpin or the current standard of care. It is hoped that the drug will be approved by the end of the decade. Larry Tsai, senior vice president and global head of immunology and product development at Genentech, a unit of Roche, said that the drug-resistant bacteria 'are present in every country of the world' . He said that 'the innovative biology involved in this research could potentially reveal new insights into the structure of bacterial membranes, possibly leading to the discovery of new antibiotics in the future'. Pharmaceutical companies, including Roche, have in the past been unwilling to pursue new antibiotics because of a difficult market in which the drugs are used sparingly to try and avoid resistance. However, the UN has warned that if nothing is done to address the issue, drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 and cause a worldwide financial crash. 'Exciting development' Dr Alistair Farley, scientific lead at the Ineos Oxford Institute, has welcomed zosurabalpin as an 'exciting development' for the field. 'There is an urgent unmet clinical need to develop new antibiotics against priority pathogens such as CRAB where antimicrobial resistance is a major concern,' he said. Dr Farley added that it 'may provide a route to the development of new drugs'. Studies showing that it worked 'extremely well' in test-tubes and mice were published in the journal Nature earlier this year. Prof Laura Piddock, scientific director of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, said at the time that it provided 'definite hope' for other hard-to-treat infections. 'What is exciting about this discovery is that one of the building blocks that are part of the outer part of this bacterial cell is disrupted by this new drug,' Prof Piddock said. Antimicrobial resistance was declared by world leaders to be 'one of the most urgent global health threats' at the UN General Assembly earlier this year. The declaration committed members to establish independent panels on antimicrobial resistance, as many have done for climate change, and to reduce deaths linked to resistance by 10 per cent by 2030.
