Drug-resistant typhoid ‘concerning’

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust, who have been tracking the hard-to-treat infection, say it is replacing regular typhoid in many countries.They analysed bacterial samples from 63 countries – nearly half were impervious to standard antibiotic treatments. Over-reliance on these drugs is to blame, they say in Nature Genetics.Increasingly, doctors now need to use other, more […]

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust, who have been tracking the hard-to-treat infection, say it is replacing regular typhoid in many countries.
They analysed bacterial samples from 63 countries – nearly half were impervious to standard antibiotic treatments. Over-reliance on these drugs is to blame, they say in Nature Genetics.
Increasingly, doctors now need to use other, more expensive and less readily available antibiotics to treat typhoid fever – a disease that kills around 200,000 people each year.
The Wellcome Trust work is the largest snapshot of what is happening globally to typhoid resistance.
It shows the problem is widespread.
In many parts of Asia and Africa, where typhoid is endemic, a multidrug-resistant strain of typhoid called H58 has displaced other typhoid strains that have been around for centuries.
Of the 63 countries the researchers looked at, 21 had H58.
Dr Kathryn Holt, from the University of Melbourne and one of the study authors, said H58 was gaining a firm foothold.
The researchers say the global creep of H58 needs urgent international attention.