A new antibiotic called fidaxomicin shows promise at fighting off a particularly virulent strain of bacteria called Clostridium difficile, reports the CBC.
Currently, the standard treatment for the diarrhea caused by C. diff is an antibiotic called vancomycin, but one-quarter of patients on the drug relapse within the first two weeks.
By comparison, fidaxomicin has only a 15.4 percent relapse rate, and seems equally effective as vancomycin in fighting initial symptoms after ten days, reports a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The two drugs are also similar in terms of side-effects, but fidaxomicin is not yet approved by Health Canada or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Since 2005, C. difficile bacteria has been especially problematic for hospitals, causing an increasing number of outbreaks of diarrhea, with similar outbreaks occurring in nursing homes where residents are even more vulnerable.
"In the last 30 to 40 years, there’s been nothing new for C. difficile treatment… This is really the first drug to come along to address C. difficile in terms of, ‘Can we get a better treatment?’" said Dr. Mark Miller, one of the study’s authors.
"Having another drug in the pipeline to be able to potentially treat them, especially if further studies show it works well for severe disease, is wonderful."