Province To Issue Warning To Doctors About Superbug
Posted November 9, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s most drug resistant strain of pneumococcus ever seen in Canada, and the 14-month-old stricken with it is still battling it at the Hospital for Sick Children.
The province is reportedly planning to issue an alert to doctors about this new superbug, which has so far been resistant to four different antibiotics and has been partially resistant to two others.
The tot is fighting a serious case of meningitis, caused by the strain, and had to be given medication usually reserved for adults to see any reaction. Given the strength of the strain, the Medical Officer of Health will advise doctors to keep an eye out for cases that don’t clear up quickly with the usual treatment.
Parents should also be mindful when their children get sick, experts note, however they shouldn’t be overly worried about this one stubborn case.
Greg Tyrrell, who works at the Alberta-based lab where the bacteria was identified, feels there’s no need to sound alarm bells just yet.
“From my perspective, this is just another pneumococcal isolate that has quite a bit of antibiotic resistance,” he said.
Tyrrell, director of the University of Alberta’s National Centre for Streptococcus, said the bacteria isn’t the first 19A strain that has been resistant to normal drugs.
“We have seen 19As that are resistant to various antibiotics,” Tyrrell said. “But we haven’t seen a 19A this resistant before.”
The variant was first identified in Toronto in late 2004 according to Mount Sinai’s infectious diseases expert Dr. Allison McGeer.
A Public Health Agency official notes that in general pneumococcal disease in kids is on the decline, especially since the vaccine Prevnar was developed. At this point it doesn’t protect against the 19A strain but that variant is being included in a new generation of the drug currently being tested.
