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Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 08:34:00 EDT
Subject: Bacteria Outwit Toughest Antibiotic
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Bacteria Outwit Toughest Antibiotic
06/11/1999
By Carolyn Abraham
Toronto Globe and Mail
An international team of scientists reports that bacteria responsible for
pneumonia, blood poisoning and meningitis have become tolerant to the
antibiotic of last resort.
Streptococcus pneumoniae, a germ common in the community and risky for
children and the elderly, has genetically mutated into strains that no longer
die when exposed to vancomycin, medicine's most powerful antibiotic.
Researchers from the United States and Sweden have confirmed the development
both in the lab and in cases involving three children and one adult, raising
the specter of more chronic and fatal infections for ailments once thought to
be curable.
"The (bacteria) just sit there and wait, and as soon as you take the
antibiotic away they start growing again," said Dr. Elaine Tuomanen, the head
of infectious diseases at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis,
Tenn.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Thursday issue of the
science journal Nature, say the bacteria's tolerance of vancomycin is a
precursor to strep pneumoniae becoming completely resistant, meaning no drug
would be able to stop it from reproducing.
"Emergence of vancomycin resistance in this community-acquired bacterium
would be catastrophic," researchers said in the article. They found that 2
percent of 400 strains of strep pneumoniae collected from the United States,
Spain and Sweden could tolerate vancomycin.
Strep pneumoniae has quickly joined the ranks of bacteria that have learned
to outwit the antibiotics that once killed them. Years of antibiotic
over-prescription and misuse is threatening to reverse many of the medical
advances of this century.
The findings in Nature, however, are not entirely discouraging.
In the course of studying the genetic mutations of strep pneumoniae, the
researchers also pinpointed two genes that might ultimately serve as useful
targets to kill the bacteria.
These genes appear to be essential in determining whether the bacteria grew,
fell dormant or died, and the scientists believe they may also be present in
a whole range of the drug- resistant superbugs.
"We're hoping that this would eventually help us to focus new antibiotics, so
the bacteria will become suicidal," Tuomanen said.
She's more optimistic that a test can be quickly developed to diagnose
whether a patient is carrying a strep pneumoniae infection tolerant to
vancomycin. Tuomanen said such a test has a crucial clinical application.
For example, a boy under the age of 5 with meningitis at Le Bonheur
Children's Hospital in Memphis was treated with the standard 10- day course
of vancomycin and then removed from the drug. His infection, which at the
time was not known to be the result of the superbug form of strep pneumoniae,
returned, resulting in permanent hearing damage.
"The (bacteria) just sit there and wait, and as soon as you take the
antibiotic away they start growing again."Dr. Elaine Tuomanen, St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital.
Scripps Howard News Service
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