Sunday, November 26, 2017
Vaccines over Antibiotics - Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an infection that causes inflammation in the alveoli in one or both of the lungs. With infection, the air sacs are filled with fluid or pus, making it difficult to breathe. Pneumonia can be caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi, but bacterial pneumonia is more common in adults. In most cases, doctors use antibiotics to treat pneumonia. However, antibiotic resistance may make management of the infection less effective.
Researchers from the University Children's Hospital Zurich and UZH found that vaccination is as effective as antibiotics and may also counteract antibiotic resistance in treating pneumonia. They found that specific immune cells (B cells), facilitates the recovery process from the infection. These B cells produce antibodies that can target and eliminate mycoplasma bacteria, a common cause of bacterial pneumonia in children. In their experiment, antibodies were introduced into B cell-deficient mice. This effectively eliminates bacteria in the lungs but didn’t get rids of the bacteria in the upper respiratory tract. This shows that antibody alone does not eliminate bacterial infection completely and that our immune cell response is crucial to clear pneumonia caused by mycoplasma.
We currently don’t have a vaccine against mycoplasma, but I believe this research will pave the way for its development. I also believe that preventions through vaccination is better than having caught pneumonia and then treating it. This is because people with pneumonia may be diagnosed late and the risk of the infection spreading through the body can cause death.
References:
Sauteur, P.M., Groot, R.C., Estevao, S.C., Hoogenboezem, T., Bruijin, A.C., Sluiter, M., … Rossum, A.M. (2017). The role of B cells in carriage and clearance of Mycoplasma pneumonia from the respiratory tract of mice. The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Doi: 10.1093/infdis/jix559
University of Zurich. Pneumonia: Treatment with vaccines instead of antibiotics. (2017). ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171121095126.htm
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ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this! Before reading this, I didn't think it was even possible to vaccinate for bacterial infections. As you pointed out, more research needs to be done before this could be used effectively in humans, but it's a creative solution that could solve an emerging issue in healthcare. An article I found after a quick search revealed that up to 75% of general practitioners surveyed continue to prescribe antibiotics, even when they're not certain an infection is caused by bacteria. Evidence suggests that this rate has actually INCREASED, despite the recent focus on the issue and attempts to decrease antibiotic prescription. Implementation/administration of yet another vaccine could be problematic (assuming it makes it through the FDA gauntlet), but it could be the cheapest and most full proof solution to pneumonia treatment in general, as well as decreasing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. All in all, it exciting to see scientist thinking outside the box, and I hope the research yields a useful vaccine!
ReplyDeleteArticle: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/13/three-quarters-gps-still-wrongly-prescribing-antibiotics-even/
The problem that we are creating with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria will be very significant in our near future. It is something that not a lot of people care too much about and therefore it could cause a huge amount of human deaths. If there were a way to cut out antibiotics, then we would be able to eliminate a problem like this. I think that more needs to be done right now that could change how antibiotics are being used right now. I think patients need to be more educated on how they can be harmful if not taken correctly or completely. I think doctors need to be more stringent when it comes to prescribing antibiotics. A lot can be done right now to slow this down.
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