Nurseweek/Healthweek | Staph infection evades most potent antibiotic

Staph infection evades most potent antibiotic

posted 6-5-97

For the first time, a widely used antibiotic regarded as a fail-safe, last-line defense against common staph infections has partially failed to deter infection-causing bacteria.

The case, confirmed recently by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), involved an infant in Japan recovering from heart surgery. The child received a 29-day course of the antibiotic vancomycin, but did not recover from the infection until the drug was administered in conjunction with other antibiotics.

Until now, vancomycin has reliably treated staph infections that evade similar drugs. But experts have long warned that its widespread use could be speeding up the evolution of drug-resistant organisms.

As early as the 1950s, hospitals reported staph infections that resisted penicillin. Twenty years later, infections resisted the more potent methicillin. Now the strongest treatment of all may be at risk.

CDC officials said the latest resistance case does not constitute a public health threat. Jon Rosenberg, MD, who is in the division of communicable disease control at the California Department of Health Services, agreed, adding that the public should not expect a replacement for vancomycin anytime soon. It costs up to $200 million to get a new antibiotic from the lab to the marketplace.

Once a new drug is developed, "the faster you use it, the faster you lose it," Rosenberg said.

"No one is hoping to see a supply of new antibiotics that is able to keep up with the rate of resistance," Rosenberg said. "We’ll never beat the bugs."