Overhaul for ICU meds?

Doctors might have been giving severely ill patients in intensive care units too low a dose of antibiotics* for years, leading to unnecessary deaths and drug resistance.

But research to be conducted by Wits University and the University of Queensland aims to change that.

Jeffrey Lipman, a Johannesburg-born doctor and professor at the Australian university, has spent the past 30 years on three continents determining the exact doses of antibiotics needed to beat infections in critically ill patients. He has learned that 75% of the time, the conventional doses are insufficient, meaning they are not strong enough to kill the bacteria and instead may lead to drug resistance.

Lipman is to give the Wits faculty of health prestigious research lecture, which is open to the public, on Tuesday next week.

Speaking to the media via video link-up yesterday, Lipman said it is difficult to determine doses for critically ill people because drugs are developed in laboratories and tested on mice and then on sick people, but are not always tested on the extremely ill.

He is joining forces with Professor Mervyn Mer, Wits's principal specialist in critical care and pulmonology, to conduct extensive research on patients infected with TB and other diseases.

Mer said new data showed that TB drugs are not being given in the correct doses to patients in ICUs.

"TB is the single-biggest health problem South Africans are facing, with one in 100 getting the disease each year," Mer said.

He believes many lives would be saved if the Wits and Queensland University research can ascertain correct dosages for people very sick with TB.

Mer said critically ill people need more antibiotics because their kidneys eliminate fluids and medication faster than those who are less severely ill.

*The report previously said "too few" - however the problem was too low a dose.