Word: bacterias
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Chinese authorities say they have identified the virulent disease that appeared in Sichuan province in late June, which has sickened a suspected 212 people so far and killed 38: Streptococcus suis, a bacteria in pigs that very rarely infects human beings. Last week, a team of experts from Hong Kong who assisted in the investigation backed the diagnosis. "All the evidence collected at this stage showed that the infections were caused by Streptococcus suis," said Dr. Lam Ping-yan, Hong Kong's Director of Health...
...keeping the peace in the waiting room may be contributing to one of the most troubling issues facing medicine today. Worldwide, overuse of antibiotics is increasing the resistance of bacteria to drugs, leading to stubborn, virulent infections that are invulnerable to almost everything doctors can throw at them. Already, more than 90% of some bacteria species in Asia have developed strong immunity to frequently administered antibiotics such as penicillin and ampicillin, according to the World Health Organization. Despite growing awareness of the problem, health-care experts now fear that widespread misuse of antibiotics in populous developing countries such as China...
...Infections are becoming harder to suppress because bacteria operate under the Nietzscheian principle: what doesn't kill them makes them stronger. As germs reproduce, some mutate, randomly developing genetic traits that give them some protection against treatments that were effective against their progenitors. (Viruses, which cause the common cold, are impervious to antibiotics.) By administering antibiotics at even the slightest symptom, physicians and patients are multiplying the opportunities for stronger strains to flourish. Trouble has already appeared in the developed world: in the U.S., where experts estimate that half of all antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary, about 90,000 people died...
...Hong Kong. That means Chinese patients are more likely than Westerners to visit the doctor for minor illnesses, and when they go, they are more likely to expect some kind of medication. In addition, most mainland Chinese hospitals lack modern diagnostic resources, leaving doctors unable to tell which bacteria might be causing an infection or whether it's even bacterial at all, so they'll dose patients with more than one antibiotic at a time just to be safe?a practice that also encourages resistant bacteria. It doesn't help that drugs are a vital revenue source. Mainland hospitals generate...
DIAGNOSED. UNNAMED INDONESIAN, 17, with a mysterious lung infection; after she inhaled saltwater, sand and mud during last December's tsunami; in Indonesia. The teenager's ailment, identified in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is thought to be caused by ingestion of bacteria in saltwater and mud. Dubbed "tsunami lung," it can quickly spread to the brain, causing abscesses and possible paralysis. Although the authors of the study say the disease may be widespread, the World Health Organization believes cases are rare. The study did not name the teenager, who has recovered from the illness...