Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Antibiotics Have Never Been More Accessible To The World's Poor. But There's A Downside To That.
Four days after her toddler鈥檚 health took a turn for the worse, his tiny body racked by fever, diarrhea and vomiting, Sharon Mbone decided it was time to try yet another medicine. With no money to see a doctor, she carried him to the local pharmacy stall, a corrugated shack near her home in Kibera, a sprawling impoverished community here in Nairobi. The shop鈥檚 owner, John Otieno, listened as she described her 22-month-old son鈥檚 symptoms and rattled off the pharmacological buffet of medicines he had dispensed to her over the previous two weeks. None of them, including four types of antibiotics, were working, she said in despair. (Jacobs and Richtel, 4/7)
Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious. Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit. The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe. Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa. (Richtel and Jacobs, 4/6)
A mysterious and dangerous fungal infection called Candida auris has emerged around the world. It is resistant to many antifungal medications, placing it among a growing number of germs that have evolved defenses against common medicines. Here are some basic facts about it. (Richtel, 4/6)
