The World Health Organization has found that three-fifths of HAIs are caused by drug-resistant bacteria.
Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing and deadly problem--and the market for medicines to kill them is quickly increasing.
Recent examples: molecules to target drug-resistant bacteria and a kinase inhibitor to zap the enzyme responsible for tumor growth.
Last week brought one of the more exciting results of that collaboration: an anti-microbial hydrogel that eradicates drug-resistant bacteria.
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Military doctors are fighting to contain an outbreak of a potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria that apparently originated in the Iraqi soil.
Electronic clinical surveillance systems allow doctors to identify drug-resistant bacteria in patients quickly and stop infections before they get out of hand.
It is no accident that the European nation with the lowest incidence of drug-resistant bacteria, Holland, uses the drugs much more selectively than the rest of the continent.
This is what made the FDA clamp down on antibiotics at exactly the time when Big Pharma was abandoning the drugs due to profitability concerns and drug-resistant bacteria were starting to ooze onto the scene.
"It is a scary thing about any drug-resistant bacteria, when you grow it for the very first time out of a patient and you've only got three antibiotics, one so old that we had to bring it back from the archives, " says Col.
But our collaboration really entered high gear in 2006, when we wrote three covers together: on how marketing had overtaken science in the drug industry, how we were losing the war on drug-resistant bacteria, and on how medical devices were slipping through without enough proof they were safe and effective.
It might be useful against drug-resistant staphylococcus bacteria.
When doctors carried out throat swabs from 82 other children at the centre, they found that ten were carrying the same multi-drug resistant strain of bacteria found in the two ill children.
Big hospitals are breeding grounds for drug-resistant staph, pseudomonas and C. diff bacteria.
"For instance if I have a headache, I take a tablet for my headache, but if I take an antibiotic, all of the bacteria in my body are exposed to that antibiotic and I could be selecting drug-resistant strains, and I could be sharing them, " she said.
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