London - Tests of a new drug to combat meningitis showed it can save lives, doctors said yesterday. The first human trials of the drug in the US cut the number of expected deaths from the disease that causes an inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord.
Although antibiotics can kill the bacteria that causes the infection, up to 50 per cent of children and young adults still die and many who survive are left disabled from amputations or brain injury.
Dr Brett Giroir and colleagues at the University of Texas in Dallas tested the new drug - recombinant bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (rBPI) - on 26 seriously ill children.
Only one child died during the trial, compared to an expected four to eight with standard treatment, according to his study published in the Lancet.