New Type Of Penicillin To Combat H-Bug

Press, Volume C, Issue 29467, 20 March 1961, Page 14

New Type Of Penicillin To Combat H-Bug

A new type of penicillin, known as celbenin, is being used to combat H-bug staphylococcal infection in hospitals in Christchurch and other parts of New Zealand, a British Medical Association representative said yesterday. “Serious staphylococcal infections have been quite a major problem in Christchurch, but celbenin appears to be lethal to bacteria which have previously acquired a resistance to other types of penicillin," he added. “The drug is mainly being used where a serious staphylococcal infection has shown resistance to other antibiotics,” the doctor said- This was because a few reports were already coming in of strains of bacteria which appeared to be resistant to celbenin. Although these strains were not widespread, the more the drug was used the more likely they were to occur. The restriction of the use of the drug to very serious cases or to those where other treatments had failed was thus a necessary protection to future patients. So far as he knew, the first use of celbenin in Christchurch was in Burwood Hospital just before Christmas The doctors responsible had been “favourably impressed,”

and the drug had been used a number of times since. Celbenin was different from other penicillins in that it was not destroyed by penicillinase, an enzyme by whsch bacteria commonly protected themselves against the penicillins. It was manufactured chemically, used the natural penicillins as a model, and there was every hope that by a similar process further new penicillins might be produced which would be evep more effective against staphylococcal infections. Celbenin shared with other penicillins the advantage that, as far as was known, it produced no "cross-resistance" bacterial resistance to other drugs. Il was non-toxic to humans. I* was lethal to bacteria, in contrast to some other drugs which prevented bacteria from multiplying but did not actually kill them “The only disadvantage of celbenin is that it has to be administered by frequent injections, but that is of little importance with seriously ill patients,” the doctor said. “If. as seems likely, it proves very valuable, it will have a big place in New Zealand hospitals.”

Celbenin was produced by a British pharmaceutical firm, Beecham Laboratories, Ltd.