Mrsa

Idle, I don't know the degree of your medical expertise, but do you know if there is a vaccine for MRSA nearing testing? The Sixty Minutes segment points out that even any newer, more effective antibiotics that may combat it will also lose effectiveness eventually.

Is MRSA just a sign that we are nearing a post antibiotics era? I've been reading articles about antibiotic resistant bacteria for about fifteen years now, and it seems the predictions are coming true. But agribusiness has still prevented any legislation from being passed that would prevent the prophylactic use of antibiotics in animal feed, despite the sheer idiocy of the practice from a public health perspective.
 
Repo as far as i know there are very few bacteria which can be vacinated against. Dont ask me why

Actually the only one i can think of off hand is minigococle
 
Asguard said:
Repo as far as i know there are very few bacteria which can be vacinated against. Dont ask me why

Actually the only one i can think of off hand is minigococle
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I'm aware that most vaccines (by far) are for viruses. But apparently S. aureus can be vaccinated against. They mentioned that one is being developed in the Sixty Minutes segment I linked to (did anyone look at it?) but that segment originally aired three years ago. The newest information I can find is from 2006, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/55484.php
 
Repo Man said:
Idle, I don't know the degree of your medical expertise, but do you know if there is a vaccine for MRSA nearing testing? The Sixty Minutes segment points out that even any newer, more effective antibiotics that may combat it will also lose effectiveness eventually.

Is MRSA just a sign that we are nearing a post antibiotics era? I've been reading articles about antibiotic resistant bacteria for about fifteen years now, and it seems the predictions are coming true. But agribusiness has still prevented any legislation from being passed that would prevent the prophylactic use of antibiotics in animal feed, despite the sheer idiocy of the practice from a public health perspective.
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Repo, I am no medical expert, and have not done any reading specific to this particular topic. But, I would imagine that they are trying to find new and improved ways of fighting these types of infections -- vaccination may not be the preferred method, however. My background is only of undergraduate level biology (with focus on biochemistry and molecular genetics).

Asguard, I was not directing my remark towards anyone in particular (except for the part where I named draqon).
 
repo i cant garentiee the clincal efficasy of this because its an over the counter medication and im yet to find any clincial studies on it. well thats the disclaimer done, they have recently been advertising a nasal spray which suposedly cures the cold, virus's cant adapt to it because its not a toxin but rather a mecanical prossess where by the virus sticks to the spray and then drains down the back of the throat (to its death:p). I dont know if a simlar aproch would work on bacteria but its an interesting thory. I have also herd of drugs with protine receptors on them which then stick to the bacteria and either poison them directly or alow the bodies own immune system (which is much more versitile and adaptive than simple drugs) to specifically target the infection making it more suspetable. Now im pritty sure these are all in the experimental phase (i rember something about one of these being trialed on drug resistant TB) but either way i wouldnt be to concerned that we are about to be plunged back into the middle ages without penicilin

Even if all of these fail nano tech is on the way and so is gen theorpy and both of those also offer chances to target drug resitant diseases
 
Actually there are quite a number of vaccines against bacteria including for instances certain Neisseria or Streptococcus strains. Problems are, however, that bacteria possess a complex outer membrane structure (the part recognizable by antibodies), specifically the LPS of Gram-negative bacteria, and the fact that these can mutate rapidly without altering the pathogenicity of the bacterium. Viruses tend to be a bit more limited in this regard as their surface structure is essential for their pathogenicity. With notable examples (including HIV and influenza viruses) they cannot alter too much of their protein surface before losing their ability to infect cells. And in case of mutated viruses generally the functional core for e.g. receptor recognition still has to have roughly the same fold (but it can be altered to escape antibody recognition).

Bacteria simply can change their surface almost any way they want and still possess the abilities to infect successfully. The outer region of the LPS is known to be able to undergo massive changes in their glycosylation structure, for instance. More importantly, for this reason vaccines will only protect to a very specific strain (a specific serovar, for instance) but not against almost any other number of closely related bacteria. In some cases specific elements of the bacterium, necessary for their pathogenicity could be targeted, rather than surface elements of the bacterium themselves. This includes the toxin of Corynebacterium diphteriae. In this case the toxin produced by this bacterium is the target for vaccination and it has proven to be far more reliable than to target the bacterium itself.
 
Asguard said:
thats great news:)

has the wound itself cleared up?
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No, he does still have a pretty large wound that a nurse will be visiting him three times a day at home to clean out and repack with gauze. His bacterial load is now zero but they don't want to stitch it up in case they trap any left over bacteria inside.
 
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