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Tuesday, 30 August 2005 10:50 | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Scientists have taken a step towards preventing future outbreaks of hospital superbugs by developing a drug that destroys their defences.
The team from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, created synthetic versions of the cephalosporin class of drugs which were found to kill a rare but dangerous strain of MRSA that is known to be resistant to antibiotics and vancomycin – the last line of defence against the superbug.
Cephalodporin works by impairing the bug’s ability to form a cell wall to shield it from antibiotics.
Shahriar Mobashery, who worked on the study, said: "We are the first to demonstrate this unique strategy, which could provide a new line of defence against the growing problem of antibiotic resistance."
Mark Enright, an MRSA expert at Imperial College London, said in The Guardian: "If vancomycin resistance becomes common, it's a nightmare scenario in many ways. Thousands already die from MRSA and vancomycin is really the drug of last resort to tackle the infections.
"If it stops working there's not much else to turn to."
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