Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: caly who wrote (28)	6/29/2007 6:32:08 AM
From: caly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 191

What FDA approval? The US FDA? chinabiopharma.net China Biopharma to Introduce an Immunotherapeutic Vaccine into China 2007-06-26 Princeton, NJ, June 27, 2007 – China Biopharma, Inc. (OTCBB: CBPC ) has reached a tentative agreement with Delmont Laboratory to introduce its immunotherapeutic vaccine Staphage Lysate that treats diseases of staphylococcal infection. According to this initial agreement, Delmont Laboratory will supply bulk materials and China Biopharma will contract local manufactures for the final packaging in China. CBPC will also conduct a study before a definitive agreement is to be signed. This product requires a clinical study and an approval from the Chinese SFDA before it is sold in China, though the product already has the FDA approval. As many as 1.2 million U.S. hospital patients may be infected each year with a Staph infection which is resistant to antibiotics, according to a research conducted by Association for Professional in Infection Control and Epidemiology. Each year up to 119,000 of these patients may die from the tough-to-treat strain of bacterium, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). No effective drugs are currently available in China to treat this infection and this vaccine is greatly needed. The approval process may take about two years and once approved it would bring up to $20-30 million sales revenue every year.

To: caly who wrote (28)	6/29/2007 6:42:18 AM
From: caly	Respond to of 191

Boy's death from infection prompts health warning mysanantonio.com Web Posted: 06/28/2007 09:48 PM CDT Don Finley Express-News Medical Writer A 10-year-old San Antonio boy died of an increasingly common, drug-resistant staph infection in Plano last week, prompting health officials to urge people to be alert for the skin infection and practice good hygiene to prevent it from spreading. At least three other local people have died of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in the past two years, and several clusters have been reported in school athletic programs, day care centers and spas. But because doctors aren't required to report cases to health authorities, the scope of the problem is unknown. That could change in September, as a pilot program approved by the Legislature will make Bexar County the only county in Texas where the skin infection is a reportable illness. "MRSA is becoming a big, big problem — 10 times bigger than we initially thought," said Roger Sanchez, an epidemiologist with the Metropolitan Health District. "But because it's not reportable, we don't know the extent of the problem." In the most recent case, the boy was visiting a sister in Plano, where he developed a rash on his stomach. His family gave him acetaminophen, thinking it might be chicken pox. He also had an abscess on his leg. But within 72 hours, the boy become unresponsive and the family took him to a hospital where he died June 17. An autopsy determined the infection had spread to his blood and throughout his body. Deaths from the MRSA are "fairly infrequent," Sanchez said. "But what we used to consider a common boil is no longer so. It could be an MRSA infection. And if that's the case, then it can become septic and enter the bloodstream and other organs of the body." The bacteria, which can cause skin infections that resemble a pimple or boil, are common. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that perhaps 25 percent to 30 percent of the population carries the organism on their skin or inside their nose, usually without causing infection. Initially, MRSA, which has been called a 'superbug,' was a problem in hospitals and nursing homes, where patients often have weakened immune systems. It still is. A national study released Monday at the Association for Professionals in Infection and Epidemiology meeting in San Jose, Calif., found as many as 1.2 million hospital patients a year are infected with MRSA — nearly 10 times as many as previously thought. But community-acquired MRSA is a growing problem as well. The infection is easily spread from person to person, or through shared towels or other items. "We're seeing quite a large number of (MRSA) abscesses that have to be drained on a daily basis at all of our locations," said Dr. David Gude, chief operating officer at Texas MedClinics, which operates nine clinics in San Antonio and a 10th in New Braunfels. "Our experience is that we've been seeing over the last five years a gradually increasing amount of MRSA," Gude said. "People come in, think they have a bug bite, they have a pocket of pus that has to be opened up and drained." The one-year pilot project in Bexar County would require medical laboratories to report MRSA infections to the health district. Health officials hope the data will tell them how common the infection is in the community, and whether it is occurring more often in certain groups or parts of the city. "The thing to tell the public is, this bacteria is here to stay," Sanchez said. "It's not going anywhere. We have to learn to upgrade our level of hand-washing and hygiene. That's the first line of defense, hand-washing."