News by Subject Medicine & Health

Lowering mutation rates in harmful bacteria might be an as yet untried way to hinder the emergence of antimicrobial pathogens. One target for drug development might be a protein factor, DNA translocase Mfd, that enables bacteria to evolve rapidly by promoting mutations in many different bacterial species. This action speeds antibiotic resistance, including multi-drug resistance. Working on drugs to block Mfd and similar factors could be a revolutionary strategy to address the worldwide crisis of treatment-resistant infectious diseases.

For children and adults with food allergies, personal self-injectable epinephrine devices are crucial to treating severe reactions such as anaphylaxis if there is unintended exposure to allergens. Autoinjectors have become very expensive, although the drug they inject is cheap. In this study of simulated children with peanut allergy, researchers estimated value-based pricing for the devices, which is a method of drug pricing where drug costs are based on the magnitude of the benefit they provide.

A new study designed to reach hospitalized patients at risk shows that a 'real-time' educational conversation, video or leaflet can lower the missed dose rates of drugs that can prevent potentially lethal blood clots in their veins.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers led from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed an anti-inflammatory drug molecule with a new mechanism of action. By inhibiting a certain protein, the researchers were able to reduce the signals that trigger an inflammation. The study is published in Science and was done in collaboration with the University of Texas Medical Branch, Uppsala University and Stockholm University.

On European Antibiotic Awareness Day, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) publishes the results of two point-prevalence surveys of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial use in hospitals and in long-term care facilities in the EU/EEA. The findings show that practices in terms of antimicrobial use vary from country to country throughout Europe and that, overall, there is room for improvement.