A strange spike in streptococcal B infections in infants in the 1960s. This medical mystery has finally found its explanation: resistance to antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance was already taking its toll in the 1960s. This is what an international team explains in the latest edition of Nature Communications. Its members, led by Philippe Glaser, of the CNRS / Institut Pasteur joint unit, discovered the origin of the explosion of neonatal infections due to streptococcus B, observed in the 1960s.
800 infections each year
In Europe, as in the United States, doctors have observed an impressive increase in neonatal infections due to streptococcus B. This bacterium, which is found in the digestive tract, colonizes the urogenital tract and can be transmitted to infants during pregnancy. childbirth. Each year in France, 800 infections of this type occur, of which 50 to 100 are fatal. Many of the surviving babies suffer from neurological damage. It can lead to sepsis or even meningitis. If today it is possible to detect streptococcus B and treat it in prevention, this was not the case in the 1960s.
But how can we explain that we have gone from a virtual absence of infections to a fairly high rate of transmission? According to the results of the study, it is the antibiotic resistance which is at the origin of this explosion. The team sequenced and then compared the genome of 230 strains of streptococcus B collected between 1950 and today. They found that their DNA was very little varied, which testifies to a common origin, but especially recent.
90% resistant strains
In addition, 9 strains out of 10 are resistant to tetracycline, an antibiotic that used to be widely used. For the researchers, there is no need to wonder: the drug was very widely prescribed for the prevention or treatment of various infections. Streptococci, hitherto not very dangerous, have therefore developed resistance … The strongest variants were “selected” naturally and spread, resulting in the situation observed in the 1960s.
The interest of such a discovery is twofold. It testifies to the age of antimicrobial resistance, but above all, it shows how the uncontrolled use of antibiotics can cause serious damage. Because if tetracycline has hardly been used for twenty years, the damage linked to its overuse is still relevant and affects a particularly fragile population.
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