Novel approach fights leprosy
By Nathan Seppa
From San Francisco, at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
An antibiotic typically used to fight sinus infections and pneumonia shows remarkable potency against leprosy.
In a study of leprosy patients in the Philippines, Robert H. Gelber, a physician at the University of California, San Francisco and his team treated 10 men with oral moxifloxacin daily for 2 months, followed by standard drugs for leprosy. Within 2 weeks of the moxifloxacin therapy, skin lesions on the men were clearing up. Skin biopsies showed that in all 10 patients, Mycobacterium leprae—the microbe that causes the disease—was undetectable within a week or two.