DOCTORS are warning that a bacterial strain that caused widespread infections among healthy young people in the 1950s has acquired resistance to most modern antibiotics, and poses a serious threat once again.
"I have no doubt that this is going to cause serious public health problems in the UK and elsewhere in coming years," says Mark Enright of the University of Bath, UK, a member of an international team that has studied the bacterium. "This is a very aggressive pathogen and it's spreading rapidly."
In 1953, a virulent strain of the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium called 80/81 was identified in babies in Australia. It went on to cause serious outbreaks of skin infections, sepsis and pneumonia worldwide, often in healthy young people and children, both in hospitals and in the community. The 80/81 strain was resistant to penicillin, but with the introduction of antibiotics such as methicillin it was largely eliminated ...
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