The Rise Of Super Ear Bugs

The Journal of the American Medical Association has recently reported that a strain of bacteria has been discovered to be resistant to all approve drugs used as medication for ear infections in children. This was revealed to a couple of pediatricians, who perform an infrequent procedure called tympanocentesis or ear tap as their standard practice on their patients, when several antibiotic treatments failed to achieve the desired results. Tympanocentesis is conducted by puncturing the eardrum of the child in order to drain fluid so as to relieve pressure and pain. Then, the drained fluid is analyzed in order to identify the strain of bacteria responsible for causing the ear infection.

For this group of children under the said pediatricians in Rochester, New York, however, the ear infections persisted even after receiving ear tap procedures and taking additional rounds of antibiotics. As such, they underwent ear tube surgery and it was even reported that one of such patients suffered the permanent loss of hearing. With such results, the said practitioners realized that the infection may be caused by some suberbugs. This suspicion moved them to have the children’s ear tap fluid to undergo testing at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

After examining the ear fluid samples, it was discovered that the so-called superbug, 19A strain, could only be eradicated by the antibiotic, levofloxacin, Levaquin. Such drug is normally prescribed to adults and administration to children is cautioned against. Since the pediatricians had no other choice, they treated their young patients with the said drug and the treatment worked.

In studying bacteria in ear fluid samples, a simple instrument that can help a researcher is the brightfield light microscope. A brightfield light microscope allows the illumination of the specimen sample with the use of transmitted white light, like the illumination that comes from below and observed from above. Aside from the mentioned built-in illuminator, a good brightfield light microscope is outfitted with an adjustable condenser that has an aperture diaphragm or contrast control. Other parts of the brightfield light microscope include the mechanical stage and the binocular eyepiece tube. Some of the significant benefits of using a brightfield light microscope are the simplicity of the microscopy technique and the minimal preparation of specimen sample.

Going back to the said report, the 19A strain bacteria was most likely produced by a combination of the speed of evolution of bacteria and the over prescription of antibiotics. The researchers have cautioned medical practitioners to consider the possibility of having a worst case scenario even if the chances of such happening are slim. These multi-drug-resistant bacteria have the capacity to spread from the ear and into other communities. Such strain may even invade the lungs and bloodstream, causing severe cases of pneumonia or meningitis, which are only treatable by unconventional antibiotics that are not approved for children use.

The use of antibiotics, that have been written off as unsafe for children by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the treatment of children is a concern. The FDA is, after all, responsible in ascertaining that such drugs are safe and effective.