NEW YORK, Oct. 11 (UPI) — U.S. researchers found antibiotic therapy benefited those suffering with chronic Lyme encephalopathy, or cognitive impairment after Lyme disease treatment.

Patients with chronic Lyme disease report cognitive impairment, pain, physical dysfunction and fatigue — after the “standard” course of antibiotic treatment — three weeks of intravenous antibiotic therapy, principal investigator Dr. Brian Fallon, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, explained.

In the study, patients with cognitive problems that developed after Lyme disease that persisted after the standard” course of antibiotic treatment were randomly selected to take an additional 10 weeks of IV antibiotic therapy or IV placebo.

The study, published in Neurology, reported repeated IV antibiotic therapy was more effective than a placebo in improving cognition, and among the more impaired, in improving pain, fatigue and physical dysfunction in those with chronic Lyme disease.

IV antibiotic therapy has the potential for serious risks such as systemic infection, thrombus formation or allergic reactions, Fallon said.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

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ISLAMABAD: Overuse of antibiotics could raise intestinal disorders as they kill useful bacteria from the body, says a study that found such infection in 16 states of the US.

The infection – C. difficile – often strikes older hospital patients treated with antibiotics, reported news portal NorthJersey.com.

C. difficile causes severe diarrhea and other potentially life-threatening complications. But scientists say it has also begun spreading among people of all ages even who have not been hospitalised or used antibiotics.

“The widespread use of antibiotics, particularly their inappropriate use, has contributed to the increased incidence of C. difficile,” the researchers said. “It’s important that people do not take them unnecessarily or demand them from doctors.”

The disorder is usually treated with other antibiotics such as vancomycin and metronidazole. But antibiotic-resistant strains have been identified.

“This is very much in the forefront of epidemiology right now,” said Cristina Cicogna of Hackensack University Medical Center at New Jersey.

In New Jersey, the germ has killed over 400 people since 1997. In 2004, there were 25 known outbreaks in hospitals of the region.

According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the infection has so far been reported in 16 US states, including New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

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Brooke Genkin

Doctors  tend to over-emphasise symptoms such as white spots in the throat, rather than looking at factors such as old age and co-morbidity, which would affect a patient’s recovery, according to an article published in the online open access journal, BMC Family Practice.

Huug J. van Duijn and his team at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care from the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands, looked at the practice records of 163 GPs from 85 Dutch practices over a 12 month period, and carried out a survey of the doctors’ attitudes to prescribing antibiotics for RT infections.

Diagnostic labelling (the tendency to encode RT episodes as infections rather than as symptoms) seemed to be an arbitrary process, often used to justify antibiotic prescribing. GPs may give out antibiotics unnecessarily to defend themselves against unforeseen complications, even if these are unlikely to materialize.

Although Dutch GPs prescribe relatively small antibiotic volumes and international colleagues often envy the quality assurance system in Dutch primary care with guidelines and peer review groups, Van Duijn suggests that the results of his study should be used to update quality assurance programs and postgraduate courses, to emphasise the use of evidence-based prognostic criteria (e.g. chronic respiratory co-morbidity and old age) as an indication to prescribe antibiotics instead of single signs of inflammation or diagnostic labels.

“Even in the Netherlands there is an over-prescribing of antibiotics; about 50% of the antibiotic prescriptions for acute RT episodes are not in accordance with Dutch national guidelines,” says van Duijn. “Considering costs, side-effects and the growing resistance to pathogens, it is important to rationalise antibiotic prescribing as much as possible.”

Article: Diagnostic labelling and other GP characteristics as determinants of antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract episodes , Huug J. van Duijn, Marijke M. Kuyvenhoven, Hanneke M. Tiebosch, François G. Schellevis and Theo J.M. Verheij , BMC Family Practice (in press).

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Often called the most devastating epidemic in the recorded history of the world, the 1918 influenza virus pandemic was responsible for more than 40 million deaths across the globe. The incredible lethality of the 1918 flu strain is not well understood, despite having been under intense scrutiny for many years. Now, a new study published by Cell Press in the October issue of the journal Cell Host & Microbe unravels some of the mystery surrounding the devastating 1918 pandemic and provides key information that will help prepare for future pandemics.

It is relatively rare for an influenza virus to be virulent enough to cause death in healthy humans. Many deaths associated with influenza are caused by the combined influence of viral disease and the following secondary bacterial infection. Although the 1918 pandemic strain was one of the few influenza viruses capable of killing healthy victims on its own, the majority of fatal cases from the “Spanish Flu” can be attributed to secondary bacterial pathogens rather than primary viral disease. This important interaction between influenza viruses and bacteria is not well understood.

Dr. Jonathan A. McCullers from the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and colleagues examined this interaction by studying a newly discovered influenza A virus (IAV) protein, called PB1-F2. The gene encoding PB1-F2 is present in nearly all IAVs, including highly pathogenic avian IAVs that have infected humans and the IAV associated with the 1918 pandemic. “PB1-F2 was recently shown to enhance viral pathogenicity in a mouse infection model, raising questions about its effects on the secondary bacterial infections associated with high levels of influenza morbidity and mortality,” explains Dr. McCullers.

The researchers found that expression of PB1-F2 increased the incidence of and exacerbated secondary bacterial pneumonia in a mouse model. Intranasal delivery of a synthetic peptide derived from a portion of PB1-F2 had the same effects. Further, an influenza virus engineered to express a version of PB1-F2 identical to that in the 1918 pandemic strain was more virulent in mice and led to more severe bacterial pneumonia, explaining in part both the unparalleled virulence of the 1918 strain and the high incidence of fatal pneumonia during the pandemic.

The finding that PB1-F2 promotes lung pathology in primary viral infection and secondary bacterial infection also provides critical information for the future. “Given the importance of IAV as a leading cause of virus-induced morbidity and mortality year in and year out, and its potential to kill tens of millions in the inevitable pandemic that may have its genesis in the viruses currently circulating in southeast Asia, it is imperative to understand the role of PB1-F2 in IAV pathogenicity in humans and animals,” says Dr. McCullers. “These findings also reinforce the recent suggestion of the American Society for Microbiology that nations should stockpile antibiotics for the next pandemic, since many of the deaths during this event are likely to be caused by bacterial super-infections.”

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The State Development and Reform Commission said on April 6 that in 2007, China’s high-tech industries’ added value reached 1.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 7.8% of the GDP; and total high-tech product exports reached 347.8 billion US dollars. China’s high-tech manufacturing industrial scale ranks second in the world; and ranks at the top in international market shares.

At a forum held on the 6th in Xi’an, Secretary of the National Development and Reform Commission Xu Qin said that from 2000 to 2007, the annual export volume of China’s high-tech products grew by 38 percent. At present, the country holds 20% of international market shares. China fosters the highest global yield in industrial products such as computers, mobile phones, antibiotics, and vaccines. China is becoming an important production base for the world’s high-tech products; and has begun to shift to research, development and manufacturing bases.

By People’s Daily Online

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