February 2010

Dear Colleague,

This edition of the e-newsletter comes shortly after publication of our January edition for two reasons. First, we want to alert you to the close of our consultation process and urge those of you who have not yet submitted comments on the consultation draft to please kindly do so by Monday, February 22nd at the latest.

Secondly, we encourage you to participate in a virtual debate hosted by the Global Access to Health Platform on whether development of new antimicrobials should be a public health priority. The discussion will continue until March 5. Our guest column this month gives you a taste of the ongoing discussion and explains how you can join.

As always, we welcome your thoughts at [email protected].

Regards,

Rachel Nugent
Deputy Director for Global Health
Center for Global Development

ONLINE DISCUSSION ON ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

The Geneva Health Forum, created by Geneva University Hospitals and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, would like to invite you to join an online discussion "Antimicrobial resistance: should the development of new antibiotics be a public health priority?" which is ongoing through 5 March 2010. This discussion will be followed by a session at the Geneva Health Forum conference from 19 to 21 April 2010.

The argument that GHF has put forth to launch the discussion is that “there are basically two approaches in the current literature on how to tackle the complex issue of antimicrobial resistance. One argues that relying on the development of new drugs to overcome resistance represents the main solution, while the other focuses on containment strategies to limit the misuse and abuse of antimicrobial drugs.”

LATEST DRUG RESISTANCE RESEARCH

Pre‐existing Minority Drug‐Resistant HIV‐1 Variants, Adherence, and Risk of Antiretroviral Treatment Failure (Journal of Infectious Diseases. R Paredes et al for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) A5095 Study Team)
Effectiveness of Non-nucleoside Reverse-Transcriptase Inhibitor-Based Antiretroviral Therapy in Women Previously Exposed to a Single Intrapartum Dose of Nevirapine: A Multi-country, Prospective Cohort Study (PloS Medicine, JSA Stringer et al)

IN THE NEWS

Bacteria (Besides TB)

Research on the mechanisms of super drug resistance emergence (BU College of Engineering)
Antibiotic use in animals (Daily Herald)
Drug-resistant bugs in wild animals – driven by human antibiotic use? (Economist)

XDR TB emerging, driven by sub-optimal treatment and bad infection control (Aidsmap)
Drug-resistant TB in Europe (EU Observer)

Malaria

Counterfeit antimalarials in Madagascar, Senegal and Uganda (Sydney Morning Herald)

HIV

Information about clients’ adherence is not sufficient to improve adherence (Aidsmeds)
2nd line ART showing good results in South Africa (Aidsmap)

Other

Shifting costs of antimicrobial resistance in the US: from public to private payers (Skin and Allergy News)

PARTNER RESOURCES

Large-scale USP study in Madagascar, Senegal and Uganda on anti-malarials finds up to one-third sampled are substandard. Learn more here.

RECENT/UPCOMING EVENTS

View presentations from the 2nd Global Health Supply Chain Summit (Dec 3-4 in Zaragoza, Spain)
Submit an abstract to the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases (Atlanta, July 11-14, 2010) before 1 March.

Call for papers

Download a preliminary announcement for the Third International Conference on Improving Use of Medicines (ICIUM 2011) in Alexandria, Egypt April 10-14, 2011.

resistance-related jobs

CIDEIM seeks a researcher with experience in drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum. View details.