Zyvox - the newest antibiotic

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new antibiotic named Zyvox for use by adults with pneumonia, skin infections, and those infections shown to be tough to treat bacteria. It is also to be used on people with deadly infections caused by the supergerm enterococcus faecium.

Doctors are getting an important new weapon in the fight against drug-resistant microorganisms with the release of Zyvox. It is being touted as the first new type of antibiotic in 35 years.

"This comes at a time when we were literally running out of antibiotics," said Dr. Robert C Moellering Jr., Physician-in-chief of Boston's Beth Israel-Deaconness Hospital

The drug seems to be a cure for some infections that have become impervious to all other antibiotics, including the last resort antibiotic Vancomycin. Because Zyvox does show such strength, it can be the life-saving instrument in hundreds of thousands of life-threatening infections each year.

Zyvox is being produced in both intravenous and oral preparations. What this means is that hospitals which discharge patients quickly need not send them home with cumbersome equipment and IV units. They are able to take it orally.

"Zyvox is an extraordinary drug," said Dennis L Stevens, of Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Boise, Idaho. "It's good to treat some really nasty infections with an oral drug." Stevens went on to explain his view that doctors should not use the drug for just every routine infection they see. Improper use will soon relegate the product to just another in the useless category when treating infections.

"It is my wish that the product (Zyvox) be used mainly in a hospital setting." When primary physicians begin handing the drug our routinely, bacteria soon mutate and the drug would become useless against them.

Supergerm enterococcus faecium frequently invades surgical wounds. It also causes serious abdominal, urinary tract and heart valve infections. The frightening thing about this bacterium is that it is growing increasingly impervious to antibiotics. Close to a quarter of patients infected with enterococcus in intensive care environments were untreatable with the normal arsenal of antibiotics, including the superdrug Vancomycin. That represents a whopping 43% increase from the mid 1990's.

In a clinical trial with 145 patients suffering from Vancomycin resistant microorganism infection, Zyvox cured 67%. In further studies, Zyvox was seen to work as well as Vancomycin or other antibiotics.

Zyvox is a synthetic (designer type) drug that fights bacteria at a totally new and unique point in their life cycle. By interrupting their capability to create protein, which in turn stops their growth, the host body's immune system is able to destroy the bacteria.

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