May 11, 2006 A team of researchers working at the University of
Bristol has found a potential new treatment for listeriosis, a
deadly form of food poisoning. Their work is reported in Nature
Medicine. The group, led by Professor Jose Vazquez-Boland, has
shown that one particular antibiotic -- fosfomycin -- can treat
Listeria in the body, despite it being ineffective in laboratory
conditions. Because it was not effective in the laboratory, this
drug has never been considered for the treatment of listeriosis,
in spite of it reaching the infection sites more effectively
than other antibiotics. Professor Vazquez-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 causes the food-borne disease, listeriosis. It
often triggers a brain infection and kills up to 30% of those
affected. To