Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

26 ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE & STEWARDSHIP Probiotic use may decrease likelihood of antibiotic prescriptions among children By Anuja Vaidya U sing probiotics helped reduce antibiotic treatment given to infants and children, according to a study published in European Journal of Public Health. Researchers pooled results from 12 studies. The probiotics used in the studies were strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Researchers found that infants and children were 29 percent less likely to be prescribed antibiotics if they received probiotics as a daily health sup- plement. Among the highest quality studies, the infants and children were 53 percent less likely to receive an antibiotics prescription if they had a daily dose of probiotics. "We already have evidence that consuming probiotics reduces the incidence, duration, and severity of certain types of common acute respiratory and gas- trointestinal infections," said Daniel Merenstein, MD, a family medicine pro- fessor at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and senior study investigator. "The question is whether that reduction is solidly linked to declining use of antibiotics, and we see that there is an association." However, Sarah King, PhD, the study's lead author from the United Kingdom, not- ed that further research, particularly in the elderly, is required "to see if sustained probiotic use is connected to an overall reduction in antibiotic prescriptions." n Why giving antibiotics to dogs may help bacterial infections spread to people By Megan Knowles A ntibiotic-resistant bacteria that infected over 100 people and were associated with pet store puppies spread in part because healthy dogs re- ceived antibiotics — a decision contributing to antibiotic resistance, according to a study covered by STAT. Over half of the puppies in a sample of about 150 dogs studied in the outbreak in- vestigation received antibiotics not to treat sickness, but to prevent illness, according to the study, published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. is preventive measure, called prophylaxis, is used in food animal production and is blamed for fueling antibiotic resistance. e outbreak of the bacteria, Campylobacter jejuni, spanned from early 2016 to February 2018. e bacteria causes diarrheal disease. People fell ill in 18 states, 29 of whom were pet store employees. e investigation, which began in August of 2017, found pup- pies were the source of the issue. "Outbreak isolates were resistant by antibi- otic susceptibility testing to all antibiotics commonly used to treat Campylobacter infections," the authors said. "is outbreak demonstrates that puppies can be a source of multidrug-resistant Campylobacter infections in humans, warranting a closer look at antimicrobial use in the commercial dog industry." e CDC is working with veterinarian as- sociations and the commercial dog industry to make changes, said senior study author Mark Laughlin, a veterinarian with the CDC's division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases. n Scientists turn to soil to combat antibiotic-resistant TB By Mackenzie Bean A n antibiotic present in soil may prove effective against antibiotic-resis- tant Mycobacterium tuberculosis — the bacteria responsible for tuber- culosis, according to a study published in Nature Communications. M. tuberculosis are growing increasingly resistant against the antibiotic rifa- mycin, which targets an enzyme called RNA polymerase that is crucial to the bacteria's survival. "Rifamycin is naturally produced by a bacterium," lead study author Sean Brady, PhD, a researcher at The Rockefeller University in New York City, said in a press release. "So I wanted to find out whether nature had also made Rif analogs — molecules that look like rifamycin, but that have slight differences." Dr. Brady and his team conducted gene sequencing for numerous microbes found in soil samples from across the U.S. They identified a type of natural an- tibiotics called kanglemycins that have a genetic makeup similar to rifamycin. Additional analyses revealed these antibiotics can eliminate TB bacteria that do not respond to rifamycin. Researchers found kanglemycins anchor to a previously unknown pocket of the TB bacteria's RNA polymerase "that other drugs didn't take advantage of," Elizabeth Campbell, PhD, a research associate professor at The Rockefel- ler University, said in the press release. This discovery could provide a new way for scientists to create stronger antibi- otics that exploit this pocket. n

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