Antimicrobial Resistant Serotype 19A Streptococcus Pneumoniae and our children
Posted by preparedcitizens on October 31, 2008
This is not about pandemic preparedness but it is a pointer to changes occurring in the world of microbes….and how this effects us and our children.
My children were always prone to ear infections. Watching them pull on their ears and cry was something hard to take for this mom. It is hard to stand back and watch our children suffer and I know that I wanted antibiotics and I wanted them immediately, just to stop the suffering.
But that may have been unwise and over the course of years the overuse of antibiotics may be the cause of these emergent drug resistant illnesses. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
My children were not able to be vaccinated with Prevnar, it was in use after they were grown, but now even that vaccine has some limitations. With the rise of Streptococcus Pneumoniae serotype 19A a new vaccine is needed.
Now, a promising vaccine may protect children under two against pneumococcal meningitis and pneumonia. 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-13) may offer broader protection in infants and children than the current vaccine in use, Prevnar. Touted as being as effective as Prevnar (PCV7), PCV13 may expand coverage for six additional serotypes found worldwide.
Streptococcus Pneumoniae is a bacterium that normally inhabits that respiratory tract. It can cause sinusitis and otitis media and as a secondary infection meningitis and pneumonia. It also causes osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, endocarditis, peritonitis, and less frequently cellulitis and brain abscesses. Streptococcus Pneumoniae is the leading cause of invasive bacterial disease in children and the elderly.
Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype19a is an antibiotic resistant bacteria which is not currently covered by Prevnar. Ear infections that do not respond to antibiotics are currently being tracked in the United States by public health officials. The subtype 19A does not respond to any antibiotics that have been approved for use in children. Levaquin, a powerful antibiotic which is approved to treat adults and is not recommended for children has had some anecdotal success. Otitis media can be a serious illness which can lead to permanent hearing loss.
The overuse of antibiotics is cited as a cause of the creation of superbugs, or drug resistant infections, which are on the rise. Physicians have begun to adopt a wise “wait and see” approach to ear infections in children holding off on using antibiotics to see if the ear infection lasts for an extended period of time. This is something parents may not be used to and may balk at, but it is with good reason that they are doing so.
from the New York Times:
Worrisome Infection Eludes a Leading Children’s Vaccine
By LAURA BEIL
Published: October 13, 2008
A highly drug-resistant germ has become a common cause of meningitis, pneumonia and other life-threatening conditions in young children. The culprit — a strain of strep bacteria — can conquer almost all antibiotics in pediatrics, and has dodged a vaccine otherwise credited with causing the number of serious infections in children to plummet.
Since 2000, American toddlers have been immunized against Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus, an organism that preys largely on children younger than 5 and the elderly. Pneumococcal meningitis can be fatal, and survivors are often left with deafness and other lifelong neurological problems.
And by most measures, the vaccine has worked: by 2002, rates of infection from these bacteria had dropped as much as 80 percent in some places. But progress has now stalled, and infection with a particular type of pneumococcus, Serotype 19A, is steadily rising.
click here for the rest of the NYT Article
