Antibiotics can easily treat the normal variation of Streptococcus A, which causes tonsillitis and skin infections, but a highly dangerous form can enter the circulatory system and cause multiple organ failure and even death.
After five years of research, a team headed by Dr. Alon Moses, an infectious disease specialist at Jerusalem?s Hadassah University Hospital department of clinical microbiology, and Prof. Emanuel Hanski of the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, have succeeded in replicating a protein that exists only in the non-virulent form of the bacteria. When the protein was introduced into the virulent bacteria and tested on laboratory mice, there was no incidence of the severe form of the illness and all the animals recovered completely from the infection.
The protein has not yet been tested on humans. About 100 cases of severe Streptococcus A infection are diagnosed here each year, and an average of 15 of the patients die. Last week, a five-year-old girl from Bnei Ayish near Ashdod died suddenly in her mother?s arms after developing a high fever. Blood tests showed that she had been infected with the virulent form of Streptococcus A, which proved fatal.
After five years of research, a team headed by Dr. Alon Moses, an infectious disease specialist at Jerusalem?s Hadassah University Hospital department of clinical microbiology, and Prof. Emanuel Hanski of the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, have succeeded in replicating a protein that exists only in the non-virulent form of the bacteria. When the protein was introduced into the virulent bacteria and tested on laboratory mice, there was no incidence of the severe form of the illness and all the animals recovered completely from the infection.
The protein has not yet been tested on humans. About 100 cases of severe Streptococcus A infection are diagnosed here each year, and an average of 15 of the patients die. Last week, a five-year-old girl from Bnei Ayish near Ashdod died suddenly in her mother?s arms after developing a high fever. Blood tests showed that she had been infected with the virulent form of Streptococcus A, which proved fatal.