Antibiotic resistance: 8,000 new drug combinations are effective
New research has revealed that, contrary to traditional beliefs in the medical community, four- or five-drug combinations can be effective in treating infection with treatment-resistant bacteria.
Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance occurs when bacteria or viruses — sometimes called superbugs — genetically mutate and become immune to drugs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) call the phenomenon "an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society."
In the United States, antibiotic resistance is also a major public health concern. Every year, at least 2 million people in the U.S. contract a treatment-resistant bacterial infection, and more than 23,000 people die as a result.
Now, researchers may have come up with a strategy for tackling it. New research led by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) reveals that combining four or five antibiotics can prove surprisingly effective in killing off or slowing down the progression of drug-resistant bacteria.
The findings go against the prevalent view that such drug combinations are ineffective, or that mixing different antibiotics leads to the drugs' benefits canceling each other out.
Pamela Yeh, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, supervised the new study in collaboration with Van Savage, a professor of ecology, evolutionary biology, and biomathematics at UCLA.
Yeh comments on the findings, saying, "There is a tradition of using just one drug, maybe two."
"We're offering an alternative that looks very promising. We shouldn't limit ourselves to just single drugs or two-drug combinations in our medical toolbox. We expect several of these combinations, or more, will work much better than existing antibiotics."
Pamela Yeh
The researchers published their findings in the journal npj Systems Biology and Applications. Elif Tekin is the first author of the paper.
