Sharp Jump Seen for Drug-Resistant Germs

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Sharp Jump Seen for Drug-Resistant Germs

Sun Mar 9, 5:28 PM ET

 

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Drug-resistant germs are on the rise in the United States and

experts predict a sharp jump in the strains of a dangerous form of strep that

can overcome two common antibiotics.

 

By the summer of 2004, as many as 40 percent of the strains of Streptococcus

pneumoniae could be resistant to both penicillin and erythromycin, researchers

warn. That form of strep causes thousands of cases of meningitis, sinusitis, ear

infections and pneumonia every year.

 

Researchers based at the Harvard School of Public Health studied reports from

sites in eight states, measuring how common the drug resistance was in 1996 and

how it increased by 1999.

 

Penicillin resistance rose from 21.7 percent of strep strains in 1996 to 26.6

percent in 1999, and for erythromycin it increased from 10.8 percent to 20.2

percent, the team reports in a paper appearing in Monday's online edition of the

journal Nature Medicine.

 

The report provides further support for arguments against unnecessary antibiotic

use, said Marc Lipsitch, one of the researchers.

 

For years, public health experts have warned that overuse of antibiotics — often

when they are not needed — is leading to more and more drug-resistant bacteria.

 

For example, many people demand antibiotics when they have a cold, even though

colds are caused by viruses, which are not affected by antibiotics.

 

Just last month the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) announced

plans to require a new warning on antibiotics, pointing out that overusing them

makes them less effective.

 

Doctors must be sure a patient is suffering a bacterial infection, not a virus

with similar symptoms, before prescribing antibiotics, the warnings say. The

government estimates that half of the 100 million antibiotic prescriptions

written in physician offices each year are unnecessary.

 

The new research " puts it on the doctor's plate, " said Dr. Donald Low of Mount

Sinai Hospital in Toronto. " Can we change the future? Yes, there are things we

can do, but can we do them quickly enough? "

 

Doctors need to make the decision to use antibiotics the right way, in the

proper dose, he said, and to encourage vaccination, which reduces illness and

thus the need for antibiotics.

 

Vaccines against that form of strep are recommended for infants and older

persons, the two groups most likely to get the infection.

 

Germs resistant to just one of the antibiotics can still be killed by the other,

so the researchers project either a slow growth or a decline for these bacteria.

 

But using a new statistical formula that takes into account how the bacteria are

transmitted, the researchers forecast rapid growth for strains of S. pneumoniae

that are resistant to both of the antibiotics, reaching 40.6 percent by the

summer of 2004. That's up from just 8.6 percent in 1996.

 

" That's a bit of a chilling message, " said Low, who was not part of the research

team. " Within a year and a half, we'll know whether they're right or wrong, " he

said. If the technique works, it will be a valuable tool in the future, he

added.

 

Dr. Allison McGeer, also at Mount Sinai, added: " We have always known this is

what will happen to resistance unchecked, and there is no reason to believe that

their predictions will not come true. "

 

___

 

On the Net:

Nature Medicine: http://www.nature.com/nm

 

 

 

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