Researchers find new treatment for food poisoning

The group, led by Professor Jose Vazquez-Boland, has shown that fosfomycin can treat listeria in the body, despite it being ineffective in laboratory conditions. The researchers’ findings were reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

To test whether antibiotics are effective, bacteria are taken from patients and tested in the laboratory. These tests measure whether antibiotics can halt the growth of listeria in laboratory conditions. Such tests are usually a measure of how effective the drug will be in the body.

When tested this way, listeria had been shown to be resistant to fosfomycin. As a consequence, this drug has never been considered for the treatment of listeriosis in humans.

“Our results illustrate that antibiotic resistance in the laboratory does not always mean that the drug will not work in the infected patient. This work brings some optimism to the highly worrying problem of the increasing resistance to antibiotics,” commented Professor Vazquez-Boland.

Listeriosis often triggers a brain infection and kills up to 30% of those affected.