US agrees Bayer Cipro deal for anthrax, then reveals switch to doxycycline

Shortly after announcing an agreement with Bayer for the supply ofdeeply-discounted Cipro (ciprofloxacin) as the first-line treatment to prevent anthrax infection (Marketletter October 29), US health officials now say they plan to lean more towards the older, cheaper doxycycline, and to save Cipro for when it is really needed.

Doxycycline is a better choice in the current situation, said Bradley Perkins of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, given the "important public health implications" of the fact that tens of thousands of people are currently taking the drug. While Cipro is the first drug of choice when little is known about an infection, if people take the product for the recommended 60 days, it may not work as well if they have another infection and need Cipro, Reuters reports Dr Perkins as saying.

"For that reason we are moving more strongly to the use of doxycycline in this particular situation," he stated. Given the information about the susceptibility of the organisms seen to date and the number of people currently on treatment, "it would be a reasonable and, at this point, perhaps a preferred way to start," he said.