Word: vancomycin
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...December 6, 1997, issue of The Lancet, an international medical journal published in Great Britain, Dr. Keiichi Hiramatsu of Tokyo's Juntendo Hospital reported that 20 percent of all staphylococcus aureus has become resistant to vancomycin, the only universal drug for the bacteria. It afflicts nearly one million of the 23 million Americans who undergo surgery annually, especially infants and the elderly...
...study was motivated by Hiramatsu's 1996 discovery of vancomycin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) in a four-month-old male infant suffering from staphylococcus aureus infection after open-heart surgery. The patient failed to respond to vancomycin therapy and was cured only with a combination of other antibiotics. The strain was named Mu50 and became known as the world's first case of VRSA...
Hiramatsu also discovered that several strains of staphylococcus aureus--namely the Mu3 strain--had the potential of developing into VRSA. Hiramatsu reported that after repeated treatment with vancomycin, Mu3 developed a resistance level equal to Mu50, the VRSA strain. With each dosage of vancomycin the doctor prescribed, the more resistant the population grew, until it became just steps away from full-blown resistance...
...using several antibiotics simultaneously, the doctors in Michigan brought their patient's infection under control. Even so, health officials suspect that vancomycin-resistant staph will soon appear in other U.S. hospitals as well. Calling for stringent antiseptic procedures, they urged doctors to report cases of vancomycin-resistant staph promptly...
Bacteria, of course, don't become resistant on their own. Whenever antibiotics are used indiscriminately, mildly resistant bacteria survive and breed with one another, creating increasingly resistant germs. Pharmaceutical companies are racing to create new antibiotics that can replace vancomycin as the drug of last recourse. The leading candidate: Synercid, an experimental drug being developed by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. Tests show that it should defeat even vancomycin-resistant staphylococci--at least until a tougher strain of bacteria evolves...