Staph Killer

Too sick even to cry, the tiny, four-week-old infant lay limply on its bed in a British hospital Tests of blood and pus samples, drawn from an inflamed abscess on the child's right hip, produced a chilling diagnosis: Staphylococcus aureus, of the dreaded "hospital type,"* which is resistant to penicillin and most antibiotics. With little hope of success, physicians administered massive doses of penicillin and streptomycin. Neither worked, and the child hovered near death. Finally, doctors tried an experimental drug, one so new that it still had no name, bore only a laboratory code number: BRL 1241. The dramatic result: after five days of treatment with BRL 1241, virulent staph germs had disappeared from the infant's blood and urine, and in 20 days all signs of active infection had subsided. The child was well, hungry and squalling.

By last week, BRL 1241 had acquired two trade names (one each for Britain and the U.S.)--Celbenin and Staphcillin --and was ready for market. A synthesized, chemically produced penicillin, developed mainly under the direction of four British doctors, all under 40, the new drug promises to become a potent weapon in the frustrating fight against staphylococcal infections. In U.S. clinical tests, Staphcillin proved effective against penicillin-resistant staph strains in nearly nine out of ten cases. And its successful com mercial synthesis offered hope of another breakthrough: development of nontoxic penicillins that can be administered with safety to allergic patients.

*-Not to be confused with a penicillin-sensitive strain of Staphylococcus aureus (Phase Type 53-77) that caused an infection in Vice President Nixon's left knee (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

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