Andhra Medical College Research on Antibiotics Shows Promise

VISAKHAPATNAM: The superbug or multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria has become a challenge for doctors and curse for patients worldwide. As a result of misuse or over-usage of antibiotics to kill bacteria, certain bacteria became resistant to many drugs or antibiotics, and cannot be destroyed by antibiotic medicines even with combination of two or more drugs administered by doctors. Therefore, research is now focussed on evaluating the efficacy of non-antibiotics to treat MDR bacteria.

In this regard, the microbiology department of Andhra Medical College (AMC) has undertaken an interesting and much-needed research on non-antibiotics to counter threats from superbugs and thereby reverse the antibiotic resistance.

In a research titled 'Reversal of Methicillin Resistance in MRSA by Thioridazine' (MRSA is the name of the bacteria Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus while Thioridazine is the name of the non-antibiotic drug) undertaken by researcher Dr Ramakrishna Reddi under the guidance of Dr Professor N Lakshmi, drugs such as Thioridazine and other non-antibiotics are showing promising results against MRSA superbug and can also be effective for treatment of MDR Tuberculosis after further research and clinical trials...