Overlooked amidst the news this week that often deadly drug-resistant staph infections have become more widespread than thought was a second report of another newly detected superbug.
While the staph infections are mostly a problem in health care settings and school and gym locker rooms, the other new strain seems to cater to a younger set — toddlers to preschool age — who are prime targets for ear infections.
By the time they are 3, 83 percent of U.S. children have suffered one or more ear infections. And parents and pediatricians alike know that some kids seem to constantly have an ear infection, despite repeated assaults by various flavors of antibiotics.
Two researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center who also are partners in a private pediatrics practice near the New York hospital found that the new strain shrugs off all antibiotics that are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to fight ear infections in children. It’s also untouched by the vaccine Prevnar, which creates immunity against seven strains of s. pneumoniae to protect against pneumonia and meningitis.
Drs. Michael Pichichero and Janet Casey identified the superbug in a small group of their young patients because they do a procedure most child doctors don’t when a kid comes in with an earache. They insert a small needle through the eardrum and drain fluid to relieve pressure and pain. And they do tests to determine what type of bacteria is the culprit before they prescribe an antibiotic.
Even after the ear tap and additional rounds of antibiotics, infections persisted in a small group of children they were treating, requiring ear drainage tubes in several and permanent hearing loss in one.
Lab screening at the medical center finally determined that the new germ could only be killed by a powerful antibiotic called levofloxin, which has not been approved for use in children because side effects can include damage to tendons and cartilage.
But with no other option, the Rochester doctors gave the infected children crushed adult tablets and the bacteria finally cleared out.
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