What is it about?
We have identified antimicrobial fatty acids and monoglycerides that could be used in the place of antibiotics to stop gonorrhoea eye infections in newborn infants from causing blindness.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
The bacteria that cause gonorrhoea have become resistant to most of the antibiotics recommended for use against them. We are facing a future of untreatable gonorrhoea. In women, gonorrhoea often has no symptoms. Infants born to mothers with gonorrhoea can develop eye infections that cause permanent, life-long blindness. If the infection cannot be stopped other options are needed, like those described in our publication.
Perspectives
With this research I wanted to address the urgent need for treatment for gonorrhoea disease, focusing on the devastating impact of gonorrhoea eye infection in newborn babies. Mothers may have no idea that they are infected with these bacteria until they pass them on to their babies. I wanted to do something to try to combat these bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
Lori Snyder
Kingston University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Prevention of Ophthalmia Neonatorum Caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae Using a Fatty Acid-Based Formulation, mBio, July 2017, ASM Journals,
DOI: 10.1128/mbio.00534-17.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
