Super Bacteria Found in New Mexico Cave

(PHOTO: A researcher stands near the "Pearlsian Gulf" in the Lechuguilla caves, NM/Max Wisshak)(HN, 4/11/12) - Lechuguilla Cave, a subterranean tunnel stretching for 130 miles through Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, US  may just hold the key to the growing global problem of antibiotic resistance to current modern viruses. Deep in the cave's most arid depths, amid no sunlight, no water - a lush garden of bacteria grows untouched by humans for 4 million years.  These strains of bacteria thrive on harsh minerals of the geological formations to which they cling & fend off other life forms that would prey on them.  Hazel A. Barton, a spelunker & microbiologist at the University of Akron in Ohio collected about 500 strains of bacteria from 3 sites in the cave. Of the 93 strains that were chosen for evaluation, all were resistant to at least 1 of the current antibiotics used to fight bacterial infections & some were resistant to at least 14. Virtually all of the 26 antibiotics tested - from natural products like vancomycin to synthetics such as ciprofloxacin & linezolid - proved useless in killing at least 1 of the strains of bacteria collected.

 (GRAPH: A bacteria breaking down an antibiotic/TextbookofBacteriology)What does this mean?  Try as you might to kill them, infectious diseases gain the upper hand against medicines eventually & the process cannot be stopped.  The study appeared on the same day the US Food & Drug Administration asked drug makers & veterinarians to reduce the widespread use of antibiotics in commercial livestock.  In 2010, nearly 29 million pounds of antibiotics were fed to animals, accelerating bacteria's adaptation to drugs.  Scientists have long believed the ability of disease-causing bacteria to outwit antibiotics was a man-made phenomenon that made many bacteria's less vulnerable to drugs used to fight tuberculosis, malaria, gonorrhea, influenza, pneumonia &  AIDS.  The findings make it clear that humans will always have to contend with antibiotic resistance, no matter what steps are taken to prevent it; but the study's findings should help scientists to develop antibiotics for future use.  (Read more at NATGEO) 

Malaria Resistance Increasing on Thai-Burma Border

(PHOTO: Microscopic magnification shows Plasmodium falciparum-the most virulent of the 4 malaria parasites that infect humans, destroying red blood cells in the liver. It digests a cell's hemoglobin, multiplies inside to the point of rupturing the cell, & rapidly spreads a new generation of infection/NatGeo)Malaria parasites resistant to the last, best drug treatment, called artemisinin combination therapy, or ACT, are infecting people along the border of Thai-Burmese reports the latest Lancet from physicians treating patients there. The proportion of patients with the slowest response to treatment in western Thailand has increased from less than 1% in 2001 to 20% in 2010. The focus on ACT-resistant strains has recently been in Cambodia - but this is a new resistance - meaning it arose independently from the Cambodian type rather than spreading from there. Malaria experts have been holding their breath, hoping it wouldn't happen. But it did.

(Video Al Jazeera)

If drug-resistant strains spread worldwide, public health officials will once again need to develop new drugs. The biggest fear is that resistant forms of malaria will emerge in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria afflicts & kills more people than anywhere else. Widespread resistance to chloroquine, the drug of choice for fighting malaria from the 1950s through 1980s, led to a major resistance development from the disease, especially among children.

(GRAPH: Malaria symptoms/Wikipedia) Additionally, researchers report in Science they've zeroed in on changes in the parasite's genes which drive the new strain of resistance.  Artemisinin-based therapies are a big reason why the hope of eliminating malaria has been rising; including wide distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets & last fall's announcement that the first large field trial of a malaria vaccine reduced infections by 55%. More than 600,000 people die of malaria each year around the world tho that number has been falling.