Azithromycin News and Research

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Azithromycin, also known as Zithromax, belongs to the class of medicines known as antibacterials orantibiotics. These medicines kill bacteria (small organisms that can cause infection in humans) or stopbacteria from growing. Patients with weakened immune systems, includingpeople with HIV, tend to have more frequent andmore serious bacterial infections. Azithromycinwas approved by the FDA on June 14, 1996, formany uses, including the prevention and treatmentof Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) inpersons with advanced HIV infection. It is alsobeing investigated to see how well it works inpreventing other kinds of bacterial infections inpeople with HIV.

Antibiotic not sufficient for treating trachoma in populations with high disease prevalence

Treating trachoma, an eye infection that can lead to blindness, with a single mass antibiotic distribution in Ethiopian communities with high prevalence of infection is not effective in eliminating the disease

9 Mar 2006

Risk factors for nongonococcal urethritis

The study, by Australian researchers Catriona Bradshaw, MD, and colleagues at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, is the first major case-control study to simultaneously address all currently hypothesized causes of NGU.

6 Jan 2006

Tropical diseases such as sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis, river blindness, hookworm, elephantiasis, and blinding trachoma are being ignored

"The big three" infections AIDS, TB and malaria have caught the world's attention but other disabling and fatal infectious diseases in Africa are being ignored, say three eminent tropical disease researchers in the international health journal PLoS Medicine.

11 Oct 2005

Using X-ray crystallography, researchers have "seen" the structural basis for antibiotic resistanc

Using X-ray crystallography, researchers at Yale have "seen" the structural basis for antibiotic resistance to common pathogenic bacteria, facilitating design of a new class of antibiotic drugs, according to an article in Cell.

22 Apr 2005

Researchers make gains in understanding antibiotic resistance

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers chiseling away at the problem of antibiotic resistance now have a detailed explanation of how the drugs' main cellular target in bacteria evolves to become resistant to some of these medications.

22 Apr 2005

Antibiotic treatment does not reduce risk of secondary cardiac events

Taking antibiotics weekly for one year does not reduce the risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event for patients with stable coronary artery disease, according to a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. It is published in the April 21, 2005, edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

20 Apr 2005

Invasive pneumonia and antibiotic resistance decreased after childhood streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine introduced

The problem of increasing antibiotic resistance in cases of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a major cause of pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis, was dramatically reversed following the licensing and use of a new conjugate vaccine for young children in February 2000, according to research conducted at Emory University, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Georgia Division of Public Health.

21 Mar 2005

Immediate access to antibiotics stems spread of sexually transmitted diseases

In an editorial to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins offer their support for a study which shows that providing faster, more direct access to antibiotics for partners of newly infected patients reduces re-infection rates and spread of sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea and Chlamydia, compared to standard practice.

16 Feb 2005

Study highlights the effectiveness of azithromycin (Zithromax) in reducing infection rates of trachoma

The New England Journal of Medicine published today a study entitled "Mass Treatment with Single-Dose Azithromycin for Trachoma."

4 Nov 2004

Studies show Pfizer's Azithromycin Microspheres effective as treatment for respiratory tract infections

Pfizer Inc.'s new investigational microsphere formulation of azithromycin, which is dosed as a one-time-only oral antibiotic, is comparable to other frequently prescribed treatments for some of the most common respiratory tract infections in adult patients.

1 Nov 2004