2024-02-25 11:32:01
New antibiotics provide hope in the face of antibiotic resistance, a scourge that continues to increase globally.
Published on 02/25/2024 08:53 Updated on 02/25/2024 12:32
Reading time: 2 min The French are consuming more and more antibiotics. An increase of 21% between 2021 and 2022. New molecules give rise to hope to address therapeutic impasses. (YULIA REZNIKOV / MOMENT RF / GETTY IMAGES)
Martin Ducret, doctor and journalist at Doctor’s Daily, tells us today regarding new antibiotics, these anti-infectious drugs which have saved millions of lives since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin. More and more people around the world are suffering from antibiotic resistance.
franceinfo: Before telling us regarding these new antibiotics, explain to us what antibiotic resistance is?
Martin Ducret : Antibiotic resistance is when bacteria evolve and develop defense mechanisms that allow them to escape the action of antibiotics. In fact, these anti-infection drugs – which have saved millions of lives since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928 – are victims of their success.
By misusing them or using them too much, more and more bacteria appear that are resistant to their action. As a result, the so-called “first-line” antibiotics usually prescribed by the doctor, such as amoxicillin for example, may not be effective, so more powerful antibiotics must be used. But sometimes, even these do not cure the infection, we then speak of a “therapeutic impasse”.
This is why research is trying to find new antibiotics, to limit therapeutic dead ends?
Yes, in recent months, scientific publications on new categories of promising antibiotics have multiplied. The latest, published in the magazine Scienceconcerns cresomycin, “an antibiotic with a great capacity for adaptation and flexibility, which allows it to circumvent many forms of resistance developed by bacteria”, Dr Alexandre Bleibtreu, infectious disease specialist at the Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, explained to me.
But be careful, we must not declare victory too quickly?
Yes, cresomycin, like other new antibiotics, has shown positive results only in laboratory bacteria and in mice. Human trials are necessary to verify their effectiveness and good tolerance, which takes at least 5 to 10 years, before they can be used routinely. Then, a pharmaceutical laboratory must decide to market them, knowing that this new type of medication, very specific, is not very lucrative.
So for the moment, remember that the probably most effective measure to fight once morest antibiotic resistance is to use antibiotics only in cases of bacterial infections (and not viral) and all the more so in the context of shortages. current medication.
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