medicalcondition:typhoid

Monthly Review | Superbugs in the #Anthropocene: A Profit-Driven Plague
▻https://monthlyreview.org/2019/06/01/superbugs-in-the-anthropocene

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While I was writing this article, the press reported:

A maternity hospital in Romania shut down because thirty-nine newborns were infected by a drug-resistant superbug. Eleven staff members were found to be carriers.

In Gaza, the wounds of thousands of Palestinians shot by Israeli soldiers are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the blockade prevents necessary medical supplies from reaching them.

In Pakistan in the past two years, over five thousand people have contracted a strain of typhoid fever that is resistant to all recommended antibiotics.

In an Indian hospital, a new strain of the common bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae, described as both multidrug resistant and hypervirulent, killed more than half of the patients who contracted it.

Tests found that 56 percent of Staphylococcus bacteria in two Afghan hospitals are resistant to multiple antibiotics.

#antibiorésistance

New report says completing a course of antibiotics even after symptoms abate is overrated
▻http://www.news-medical.net/news/20170726/New-report-says-completing-a-course-of-antibiotics-even-after-symptoms

Vers une remise en cause de la stratégie d’utilisation des antibiotiques ?

Scientists have explained the mechanism of development of antibiotic resistance.

• Target selected resistance - When a microbe multiplies within the host it leads to infection. These microbes may undergo genetic mutations that may make them deadlier and resistant to antibiotics. These genetic mutations are seen to be accelerated in case of inadequate dosing of the antibiotics or when a single drug is used to kill the microbe. Tuberculosis, HIV, typhoid, malaria and gonorrhoea are notable infections that develop resistance in this manner.

• Collateral selection – There are several bacteria types that live harmlessly within the gut or other mucus membranes. During antibiotic treatment for other infections, these harmless bacteria genetically mutate to become resistant and cause infections. Their mutations are passed on to other strains of the bacteria leading to antibiotic resistance. Organisms that show this type of resistance include Methicillin Resistant Staph aureus (MRSA).

Researchers have seen that most of the antibiotic resistance now does not come from the first type of resistance selection or target selection. This means the second type is more common. This also means that longer the duration of the antibiotic use, longer the time the harmless bacteria in the gut gets to develop resistance and pass it on to the other strains and species of bacteria. These harmless bacteria are called “opportunistic pathogens” which means they become dangerous only at certain times i.e. antibiotic use, immunosuppression etc.

In this new work, researchers have suggested optimum usage of antibiotics as the key to prevent resistance.

How disease testing tech is saving lives faster
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37406230

When a nurse at Monrovia’s Redemption Hospital in Liberia fell ill, the doctors thought she had typhoid fever.

But three days later, they realised it wasn’t typhoid - it was the deadly Ebola virus.

This delay, says Dr Jude Senguku, meant that his flatmate - the hospital’s senior surgeon - caught the disease from the woman and died, along with two nursing staff.

It was a harsh lesson in the crucial importance of fast - and accurate - diagnostics.

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#Santé #technologie

Deny the British empire’s crimes? No, we ignore them | George Monbiot
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities

Last week’s revelations, that the British government systematically destroyed the documents detailing mistreatment of its colonial subjects, and that the Foreign Office then lied about a secret cache of files containing lesser revelations, is by any standards a big story. But it was either ignored or consigned to a footnote by most of the British press.

[…]

Elkins reveals that the British detained not 80,000 Kikuyu, as the official histories maintain, but almost the entire population of one and a half million people, in camps and fortified villages. There, thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery. In some camps almost all the children died.

The inmates were used as slave labour. Above the gates were edifying slogans, such as “Labour and freedom” and “He who helps himself will also be helped”. Loudspeakers broadcast the national anthem and patriotic exhortations. People deemed to have disobeyed the rules were killed in front of the others. The survivors were forced to dig mass graves, which were quickly filled. Unless you have a strong stomach I advise you to skip the next paragraph.

Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women’s breasts. They cut off inmates’ ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound.