Clostridioides difficile

• The campaign will also be featured on consumer-facing platforms across Facebook, Instagram, waiting room TVs in doctor offices, and digital banner ads.
• “Phathom is excited to launch our first campaign directly to, and for, the people whose lives we strive to improve every day.
• To view a video of the “VOQUEZNA Can Kick Some Acid” commercial, click here.
• Talk with your healthcare provider about the possibility of fundic gland polyps if you have been on VOQUEZNA for a long time.

• The NMRC has recently completed the in-patient stage of the campylobacter challenge clinical study.
• Headline results from the clinical trial are anticipated to be reported in H2 2024.
• The Phase 2 clinical trial is designed to evaluate the safety and protective efficacy of the new product manufactured by Immuron compared to a placebo in a controlled human infection model (CHIM).
• The inpatient challenge phase of the Travelan clinical study led by Principal Investigator Dr Mohamed Al-Ibrahim at the Pharmaron CPC FDA inspected Clinical Research Facility Inpatient Unit located in Baltimore, Maryland US, has been completed.

• Originally derived from a fungus, penicillin antibiotics such as amoxicillin are used to treat common infections, including chest, sinus, ear, urinary tract and skin infections.
• Up to 20% of Australians admitted in hospital say they have a penicillin allergy.
• Read more:
  Weekly Dose: penicillin, the mould that saves millions of lives

Why does it matter?

• People who mistakenly think they’re allergic to penicillin may not get the most effective or safest antibiotics to treat their infection.
• They are also at greater risk of developing multidrug-resistant infections or “superbugs”.
• People who receive second-line antibiotics are more likely to have complications, such as antibiotic-induced gut infections.

Why do people think they’re allergic?

• They may have experienced side effects from penicillin, such as nausea or diarrhoea.
• An Epstein-Barr viral infection treated with amoxicillin, for example, causes a fine, red rash.

• But there is no evidence penicillin allergy is inherited.
• Then there are people who have had a genuine and serious reaction to penicillin.

Testing for penicillin

When someone says they have a penicillin allergy, we first get them to explain what happened with the reaction, including to what antibiotic, in what context and how severe it was. Then we perform skin tests to further assess the person’s risk of reaction. If skin tests are negative, we can then give the patient the penicillin in question under supervision (a “challenge”) to see if they react.

• Our study followed 195 patients who reported a penicillin allergy across six Sydney hospitals.
• In the first phase, we assessed 85 people and found 82% weren’t allergic to penicillin.
• In our study, eight weeks after their test, just 54% of participants in phase one correctly knew their penicillin allergy status.

Reducing long waits for allergy tests

• The wait time from someone first being referred to an allergy clinic to having testing can be up to two years.
• We need to improve access to testing and also look at when people can access allergy services.
• We also need to ensure the results of allergy tests translate to the real world so people know their true allergy status.

• Winnie Tong has received funding from Maridulu Budyari Gumal, the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE), Triple I Clinical Academic Group seed grant 2017, and the Balnaves Foundation.
• The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Andrew Carr, their collaborators and participants on this project.

• Patients were categorized as improved if Cdiff32 scores improved 10 points or more from baseline to week 8.
• The average microbiome profiles were then compared between baseline and week 8 within the improved and unchanged groups, respectively.
• The analysis found that the quartile with the highest Cdiff32 score showed a significantly different microbiome composition from most other groups with lower scores.
• “Seeing efficacy and safety consistent with previous clinical trials of REBYOTA among these higher-risk patients is encouraging.”