Tweet
Source:
Bacterium linked to pneumonia and meningitis mutates too fast to chase
BY MARGARET MUNRO, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 28, 2011
A common human pathogen is also a sort of microbial quick-change artist -- mutating too fast for medicine to follow.
The bacterium that causes pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections can quickly and nimbly dodge the vaccines and antibiotics public health officials throw at it, according to an international research team.
They have documented how one particularly nasty strain of the bacterium skipped from Spain to Britain, Canada, the United States and Vietnam, shuffling, mutating and swapping genes as it went.
About three-quarters of the microbe's genome has turned over since 1984, the team reports in the journal Science today...more from the source
Bacterium linked to pneumonia and meningitis mutates too fast to chase
BY MARGARET MUNRO, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 28, 2011
A common human pathogen is also a sort of microbial quick-change artist -- mutating too fast for medicine to follow.
The bacterium that causes pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections can quickly and nimbly dodge the vaccines and antibiotics public health officials throw at it, according to an international research team.
They have documented how one particularly nasty strain of the bacterium skipped from Spain to Britain, Canada, the United States and Vietnam, shuffling, mutating and swapping genes as it went.
About three-quarters of the microbe's genome has turned over since 1984, the team reports in the journal Science today...more from the source