New Drugs for Resistant Bugs
The problem of drug resistance isn't limited to HIV. At the recent infectious disease meeting in San Diego called ICAAC, researchers unveiled a new class of antibiotics named oxazolidinones (a tongue twister, we know) that work well against superbugs that resist standard therapies. In one study, the experimental drug Linezolid (Pharmacia & UpJohn) cured almost all cases of "community-acquired" pneumonia, and it works against skin infections as well.
Other hot tips:
RotaShield is a new FDA-approved vaccine against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe, sometimes fatal diarrhea in infants and young children. A government panel has recommended that all U.S. infants be vaccinated with RotaShield in a three-dose series beginning at two months of age.
This flu season, there's a new nasal spray in the works by Aviron that may work better than existing flu shots, especially for children, based on results from a federal clinical trial. In other flu news, researchers say a new class of drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors stop flu symptoms by blocking the release of pro-inflammatory molecules called cytokines (like IL-6 and TNF alpha) that appear to play a role in influenza-A infection.
The problem of drug resistance isn't limited to HIV. At the recent infectious disease meeting in San Diego called ICAAC, researchers unveiled a new class of antibiotics named oxazolidinones (a tongue twister, we know) that work well against superbugs that resist standard therapies. In one study, the experimental drug Linezolid (Pharmacia & UpJohn) cured almost all cases of "community-acquired" pneumonia, and it works against skin infections as well.