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How to make your own nano-silver liquid bandage at home

10/23/2019

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Materials:
- Lemon leaves 25g
- Silver Nitrate solution
- PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) powder
- Distill water

Step 1: Biosynthesis of Silver Nanoparticles
- Wash 25g of fresh lemon leaves in distilled water.
- Cut the lemon leaves into small pieces
- Add the pieces of lemon leaves in a glass beaker filled with 100 ml of boiling distilled water for 10 minutes.
- Filter through Whatman filter paper no.42.
- The leave extract solution will be used as a reducing and capping agent.
- Add 5ml lemon leaf extract slowly into 45ml 0.002M AgNO3 solution in 100ml flasks at room temperature in dark. Wait one hour for the biosynthesis process to occur. The solution will turn to light brown.

Step 2: Creating the Liquid Bandages with liquid polymer
- Dissolve 2g of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) powder in 100ml distill water. PVP is a water-solution polymer.
- Add 10ml of nanosilver solution to the PVP solution to create the liquid bandage
That's it. You have your nano-silver liquid bandage!

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What are drug-resistant infections?

9/11/2019

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Source: https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/what-are-drug-resistant-infections

Drug resistance happens when microbes adapt over time to survive the effects of drugs designed to kill them. The most common type of drug resistance is antibiotic resistance. In this process bacteria – not humans or animals – become resistant to antibiotics.
A growing number of common bacterial infections – such as urinary tract infections, gonorrhoea, tuberculosis or pneumonia – have become more dangerous because the antibiotics we have are no longer effective against resistant strains of bacteria.
These infections are called ‘drug-resistant infections’ and sometimes the bacteria behind them are called ‘superbugs’.

Who is affected by drug-resistant infections?Anyone, anywhere, could be affected. That’s because any infection you could get – including common urinary tract infections – could become resistant to drugs.
Across Europe, it is estimated that 25,000 people die each year as a result of hospital-acquired infections caused by five resistant bacteria, including E. coli, K. Pneumoniae and MRSA.
In other countries, such as India, tuberculosis (TB) continues to be the most dangerous infectious disease. Worldwide, out of 10 million people with the illness in 2017, over half a million cases were caused by drug-resistant TB. This poses new challenges, especially for children who are much more vulnerable to the disease.
Understanding the health burden of drug-resistant infections is challenging because of lack of data and standardised surveillance across different regions and countries. It is possible that many more people are affected than we realise.

Why are we seeing more drug-resistant infections? Drug resistance is a natural phenomenon, but its recent growth is largely driven by human activity.
Misuse and overuse of antibiotics in humans, animals and plants are accelerating the development and spread of drug-resistant infections. Unnecessarily exposing bacteria to medicines creates more opportunities for drug resistance to develop and spread.
Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that only half of antibiotics are used correctly.
Antibiotics are used in huge quantities as growth promoters, prophylactics and therapeutic treatments in livestock, fish and crop farming. In some countries, it is thought that 80% of the total consumption of antibiotics is in the animal sector, largely for accelerating growth in healthy animals.
In human healthcare too, antibiotics are widely misused. Of the 150 million prescriptions for antibiotics written by doctors in the USA every year, 50 million were not necessary. In OECD countries, 50% of antibiotics prescribed by general practitioners are thought to be inappropriately used – either not needed, or the wrong antibiotic was prescribed.
In some countries, regulation on antibiotic use is poorly enforced or doesn’t exist at all. People can buy antibiotics over the counter to treat viral infections, instead of bacterial ones.
Although there is an urgent need to limit the inappropriate use of antibiotics, currently more lives are lost because of lack of access to life-saving antibiotics. Globally, almost 6 million people die each year from treatable infectious diseases.
Using antibiotics appropriately – and making them available and affordable where they’re needed – are both important for improving health globally, now and in the future.
When will drug-resistant infections be a problem?Drug-resistant infections are already a problem.
At least 700,000 people die because of drug-resistant infections every year. If we don’t act now, this number is projected to rise to 10 million by 2050. This means that globally more people will die because of drug-resistant infections than cancer. Drug-resistant infections will cause six times more deaths than diarrhoeal diseases, measles and cholera combined.
All countries are – and will be increasingly – affected. But the greatest health burden will be in low- and middle-income countries where health systems are not as strong.
Drug-resistant infections could also have wider impacts on livelihoods. Resistant infections can put additional burden on vulnerable people living in poverty. And spread of resistant infections in livestock animals could affect availability of meat and dairy products.

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Community-acquired MRSA cases on the rise in New York City, study suggests

9/11/2019

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Source: Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
Summary:
Hospitalization rates in New York City for patients with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a potentially deadly bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotic treatment, more than tripled between 1997 and 2006, according to a new report.

Most cases of MRSA are acquired in hospitals, nursing homes, or other healthcare facilities. But in recent years public health experts have become increasingly concerned about MRSA infections acquired in community settings like homes, schools, and neighborhoods.

During the study period 3,579 people were admitted to New York City hospitals with CA-MRSA. The rate of CA-MRSA increased from 113 people in 1997, a rate of about 1.5 cases per 100,000 people, to 875 admissions in 2006, a rate of 5.3 per 100,000. Overall, about 20 percent of all MRSA hospitalizations over the study period were community acquired, the study found.

"These findings suggest a substantial increase in the rate of hospitalization with community-acquired MRSA in New York City since 1997," said Amanda Farr, MPH, one of the study's authors. This research was done in collaboration between the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

When compared with other hospitalizations in the study period, researchers noted that men, children, people with diabetes, people with HIV, and the homeless were more likely to be hospitalized with CA-MRSA than the general population. Residents of the Bronx also had substantially higher rates of CA-MRSA hospitalization than those of other New York City boroughs, likely impacted by a lack of access to primary care health services.

The authors speculated at the increased risk associated with these demographics and co-morbidities. Skin infections and sores are common among people with HIV and diabetes and could open the door to MRSA infection. Males and children may be at higher risk because they are more likely to play contact sports, which are associated with an increase risk of spreading bacteria. Persons that are homeless may have limited access to healthcare, as well as have other risk factors such as lack of personal hygiene and sharing personal items in shelter settings.

The findings suggest that public health efforts to curb community-acquired MRSA should be targeted to high-risk groups.

"Departments of health should educate homeless shelters about CA-MRSA, ways to recognize exposures that lead to transmission and signs and symptoms that should prompt people to seek medical care," the researchers write. "Programs to increase awareness are also needed in the Bronx and other high-risk areas to help residents and healthcare providers recognize signs and symptoms of early infection and implement prompt treatment as well as conduct proper wound care, especially in HIV-positive persons and those with diabetes."

The study reviewed administrative data submitted to New York State Department of Health's Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, a reporting system established in 1979 as a result of cooperation between the healthcare industry and government.

Journal Reference:
Amanda M. Farr, Brandon Aden, Don Weiss, Denis Nash, and Melissa A. Marx. Trends in Hospitalization for Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in New York City, 1997–2006: Data from New York State’s Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, 33:7 (July 2012)

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How to make your own nano-silver liquid bandage at home

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