SAFER TRAVELLER'S DIARRHEA DRUG

A safer treatment for traveller's diarrhea may soon be available, which will be suitable for use by adults, children and pregnant women, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The treatment takes the form of oral aztreonam, a poorly-absorbed antibiotic which, according to Herbert DuPont and colleagues of the Center for Infectious Diseases, University of Texas Medical School, "was well-tolerated and was an effective therapy for bacterial diarrhea in US adults in Mexico."

Currently available treatments for bacterial diarrhea have disadvantages, state the authors, including increasing rates of bacterial resistance, contraindications in children and pregnant women and a general lack of efficacy against the common enteropathogens.