
July 19, 2017 |
The battle against drug-resistant superbugs has neglected a key weapon, scientists say: using vaccines to quell the spread of resistance.
As drug-resistant infections sweep across the globe, public-health organizations have focused mainly on developing new antimicrobial treatments and cutting the overuse of existing ones, to prevent resistant strains emerging.
But not enough attention has been paid to vaccines as a defence strategy, say microbiologists and vaccine-developers from academic institutes and drug companies around the world. They attended a meeting at the Wavre, Belgium-based campus of drug firm GSK on 6–7 July, to discuss the issue with representatives from funding agencies and regulatory authorities.
Image: By User:Graham Beards – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10936866
Nature News
Tags: antimicrobial, bacteria, bioethics, drug resistant, health policy, microbial, public health, vaccines, viri
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