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Last week, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) announced that a landmark clinical trial evaluating antibiotic combination treatment options for newborns with sepsis has been expanded to include hospitals across nine countries in Africa and Asia. Neonatal sepsis affects up to three million babies a year globally, a crisis that has been exacerbated by increasing numbers of antibiotic-resistant cases. The NeoSep1 trial is the first time that researchers will test whether new combinations of older antibiotics are safe and effective against treating newborns with sepsis compared to commonly used antibiotic regimens. The trial aims to provide critical data to help identify new treatments that could reduce the number of deaths and expand access to treatment.
A new animal study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that H5N1 avian influenza is capable of spreading through the air, a finding that raises further concern about the ability of the virus, which continues its worrying spread among cattle populations, to cause a future pandemic. The researchers used a sample of the virus extracted from a dairy worker to infect a group of ferrets (the “gold standard” comparative animal population in flu research) that were then placed in close proximity to healthy ferrets and observed for three weeks. Three of that latter group contracted the virus without any direct physical contact with the infected ferrets, indicating that it can travel through the air, a finding that was confirmed with aerosol samples. The researchers emphasized that these findings underscore the need for continued surveillance of the ongoing outbreak.
A team of researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research have been awarded £550,000 by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to develop an effective vaccine against Campylobacter jejuni, the most common bacterial cause of infectious diarrhea, in poultry. A poultry vaccine could help reduce the rising incidence of C. jejuni human infections, which are common in young children, causing stunted growth, lifelong deficiencies, and even death. The LSHTM team has found a promising approach for developing new cost-effective vaccines, which will be furthered with the new funding.