Researchers at Swansea University, in the UK, are developing an antibiotic that can fight the MRSA superbug. And they're using superbugs to do it. OK, not superbugs. They're using the secretions from the maggots of the common green bottle fly.

A cage match I'm not sure I want to see: Maggots secrete a compound that can fight superbugs, including 12 strains of MRSA, E. coli, and C. difficile.
Courtesy National Institutes of Health

Super gross? Sure. And you won't see an ad for this antibiotic (Seraticin) on TV anytime soon. It takes some 20 maggots to make a single drop of the drug. So scientists have to fully identify it, figure out a way to synthesize it in the lab, test it on human cells, and put it through a clinical trial.

In the meantime, using live maggots on infected wounds is a time-tested way of beating infections. Dr. Alun Morgan, of ZooBiotic Ltd, told the BBC,

"Maggots are great little multitaskers. They produce enzymes that clean wounds, they make a wound more alkaline which may slow bacterial growth and finally they produce a range of antibacterial chemicals that stop the bacteria growing."

How effective are maggots? The University of Manchester has been doing research on diabetic patients with MRSA-contaminated foot ulcers. The patients treated with maggots were mostly cured within three weeks. Patients who got more conventional treatment needed 28 weeks.

So give maggots a big shout out. And then check these other stories:
"NHS 'needs to use more maggots'"
Prescription insects
Fun with beetles

Tags : staph, Seraticin, public health, pharmaceuticals, MRSA, maggots, infectious disease, health, green bottle fly, drugs, disease, biotherapy

read more... | add a comment | share

Staphylococcus aureus: Public domain image courtesy Wikimedia.There’s a new Superbug scare going on in the United States. The Staph Superbug is an evolved strain of staphylococcus aureus that is super-resistant to several common antibiotics. Called MRSA (for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), its most recent victims are an 11-year-old Mississippi girl, and a 17-year-old Virginia student whose death resulted in the entire school district closing down. That was by no means an overreaction. Infections have been reported in four other states, and residents are becoming concerned. And no wonder. US officials warn that the Staph Superbug could infect 90,000 people this year in the United States. In 2005, more than 18,500 people died from it.

In the past, most MRSA infections were contracted mainly in hospitals or health care facilities, but what's got officials worried is that the infection is now showing up more in community-based locations such as daycare centers, prisons, and schools.

Many people carry Staph on their person without even knowing it. The bacteria can live in the nose or on the skin of healthy individuals without affecting them adversely. It's passed from one person to another by contact, and becomes a problem when it gets inside your body, through a cut or open sore. Usually, traditional antibiotics such as penicillin can defend against the germ. But in recent years, over-prescribing of antibiotics coupled with the bacteria’s ability to quickly evolve a resistance against those antibiotics has produced the current deadly strain of the bug.

Health officials say the best defense against Staph is good basic hygiene, such as washing your hands often, and not sharing personal items. JGordon wrote extensively about this in a previous post.

Symptoms of Staph infection can vary and depend on where the infection is located. Externally, it can show up as boils in the skin (furuncle) or as a red, warm and painful localized skin infection (cellulites), or cause blisters or honey-colored crusted skin lesions (impetigo), or infection of hair follicles (folliculitis). It's most dangerous when it infects the blood stream because then it can be transported anywhere in your body. These are but a few of the possible symptoms.

If you do get infected with MRSA, early treatment is critical. Two drugs that can defend against the Superbug are Vancomicin and Vactrum, but only if it’s caught in its early stages.

LINKS AND MORE INFO

Post Chronicle story
Fox News story
Staph infection info
Antibiotics Resistance
More about MRSA
More on Staph infection symptoms

Tags : public health, bacteria, epidemic, staphylococcus aureus, health, infectious disease, staph, MRSA

read more... | add a comment | share

A drug-resistant strain of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus infects over 1 million US hospital patients every year: Photo from The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Every year some 1.2 million Americans leave the hospital sicker than when they went in, thanks to a virulent strain of bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus (or “staph” for short) has been around forever, infecting wounds when hospitals don’t follow proper sterilization procedures. It has been treated with penicillin and antibiotics. But recently, a new strain has evolved which is immune to these treatments. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, this new strain may infect some 4.5% of all hospital patients—almost 10 times more than previously thought. Up to 119,000 people die each year from the disease.

Patients and hospitals can take steps to reduce the spread of this illness:

• Patients at risk for the disease should be identified and tested.
• Infected patients should be isolated.
• Health care workers need to follow correct procedures surrounding sanitation and disinfection.
• Antibiotics need to be used carefully and correctly.

That last point is important. Using antibiotics when they’re not needed is dangerous, as it gives more germs a chance to develop immunity. At the same time, failure to use all the antibiotics prescribed runs the risk of not killing all the germs, leaving the strongest ones alive to multiply and spread.

Tags : staphylococcus aureus, health, hospital, staph

read more... | add a comment | share

Photo from The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.