Novel Methods To Treat Food Poisoning

Professor Vasquez-Boland said: 'Our results illustrate that antibiotic resistance in the laboratory does not always mean that the drug will not work in the infected patient. This work brings some optimism to the highly worrying problem of the increasing resistance to antibiotics.' The Listeria bacteria cause the food-borne disease, listeriosis. It often triggers a brain infection and kills up to 30% of those affected.

To test whether antibiotics are effective, bacteria are taken from patients and tested in the laboratory. These tests measure whether antibiotics can halt the growth of Listeria in laboratory conditions. Such tests are usually a measure of how effective the drug will be in the body. When tested this way, Listeria had been shown to be resistant to the antibiotic, fosfomycin. As a consequence, this drug has never been considered for the treatment of listeriosis.