Other infectious diseases of global public health significance

抗生素耐药性、病毒性肝炎和可引起流感等全球流行病的感染给人类健康带来了重大负担。我们的研究主要集中在以下方面：1)抗生素耐药性。其中一个目标是看看我们能否用较短的抗生素疗程治疗肺炎等常见感染。另一个目的是观察短期内使用两种抗生素是否会改善血液感染患者的治疗效果。最后，我们能否找到旧抗生素的新用途，这些抗生素不再被广泛使用，但可能对医院中越来越常见的耐药细菌非常有效；2)丙型肝炎。现在有几种耐受性很好的口服药物，只需12-24周的治疗，就能治愈90%的丙型肝炎患者。然而，它们非常昂贵，而且没有广泛使用。我们正在计划一项研究，看看是否可以用更短的4-6周的疗程治愈患者。3)“全球化”感染。2009年的“猪流感”爆发，距离SARS仅6年，提醒我们为全球流行病做好准备是多么重要。我们参与了两项国际流感研究，试图了解流感是如何随时间变化的，以及哪些因素可以预测谁患流感会病情恶化。我们现在正在试验一种新的治疗方法（流感- ivig），用于那些因流感住院的重症患者。

Antibiotic resistance, viral hepatitis and infections which can cause a global epidemic such as influenza, place major burdens on human health. Our research focusses on the following:1) Antibiotic resistance. One of objectives is to see if we can treat common infections such as pneumonia with shorter courses of antibiotics. Another is to see if using two antibiotics for a short time might improve outcomes when people have blood infections. Last, whether we can find new uses for older antibiotics that are no longer widely used but might be very effective for resistant bugs that have become more common in hospitals;2) Hepatitis C. There are now several very well tolerated oral drugs which cure >90% of patients with Hepatitis C with just 12-24 weeks of treatment. However, they are very expensive and not widely available. We are planning a study to see if people can be cured with even shorter treatment courses of between 4-6 weeks. 3) Infections that ‘go global’. The 2009 ‘swine flu’ outbreak, only 6 years after SARS, reminded us of how important it is to prepare for global epidemics. We are part of two international influenza studies trying to understand how influenza changes over time and what factors predict who will do badly if they get flu. We are now trialling a new treatment (FLU-IVIG) for those severely ill, hospitalised with influenza.