The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the antibiotic meropenem for treating children less than 3 months old for abdominal infections, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Meropenem is a broad spectrum antibiotic that has been approved to treat other complicated intra-abdominal infections and complicated skin infections in older children and adults and for treating children under 3 months old for bacterial meningitis.
The approval came after NIH researchers performed a study to evaluate the dosing and safety of using the drug on infants who had complicated intra-abdominal infections. The study determined the antibiotic was safe to use in very young infants and was not associated with increased risk for serious side effects. The study also determined appropriate dosing.