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A study shows efficacy and safety of oral antibiotic therapy, in the form of pills, for Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections. Currently, infusions are the standard treatment. An international clinical trial led by Professor Dr. Achim Kaasch was able to gain decisive new insights into the treatment of bloodstream infections with the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus (SAB). The research shows that in patients with a low risk of developing infectious complications, an early switch to oral antibiotic therapy is as effective and safe as continuing the intravenous standard treatment. This therapy approach enables easier treatment and faster discharge from hospital for patients....

An ancient concoction for eye infections seems to really work. The potion, which contains cattle bile, kills the "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, researchers at Britain's University of Nottingham report. In fact, it worked better than the current gold standard for MRSA infections of the flesh, the antibiotic vancomycin, an expert at Texas Tech University found. Now researchers are working to see just what's in the salve that kills germs so effectively. It started with a joint project by two wildly different departments at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert in the School of English,...

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona—A relatively new type of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus could represent the world’s next bacterial epidemic, an environmental health expert said here today at a conference for science writers. The superbug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain 398, or MRSA ST398, was first identified in an infant in the Netherlands in 1994 and traced back to her family’s pigs. Now, researchers are starting to see more serious infections and some of the cases reveal no direct link to livestock, said Lance B. Price, director of the Center for Microbiomics and Human Health at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), in Flagstaff. “The rate...