1,000 Year Old Saxon Remedy Kills Superbugs

[longknife]

New superbugs are becoming resistant to modern medicines so English scientists went back to a thousand year old manuscript to recreate a cure for eye infection which works against modern strains.


Wonder just how many so-called “Witches Brew” remedies will be found to be effective? Read more @ 1 000-Year-Old Saxon Remedy Kills Superbugs Power Line

 

[The2ndAmendment]

If it aint white it aint right.

 

[waltky]

Big pharma asking governments to Join Fight Against Superbugs...

Drug Firms Ask Governments to Join Fight Against Superbugs
January 20, 2016 - Coordinated efforts, funds needed to cut unnecessary use of antibiotics and support development of new ones, according to joint declaration from dozens of firms

More than 80 international drug and biotech firms urged governments to work with them to combat drug-resistant superbugs that could kill tens of millions of people within decades unless progress is made and new antibiotics found. In a declaration at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which opened Wednesday, the firms called for coordinated efforts to cut unnecessary use of antibiotics and support development of new ones — including through changing drug prices and investing in research. The 83 pharmaceutical companies and eight industry groups urged governments around the world to commit money "to provide appropriate incentives ... for companies to invest in [research and development] to overcome the formidable technical and scientific challenges of antibiotic discovery and development.”

А мicrobiologist reads a panel to check on a bacterium's resistance to an antibiotic in а lab at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention​

Any use of antibiotics promotes the development and spread of so-called superbugs — multi-drug-resistant infections that can evade the medicines designed to kill them. International alarm about the superbug threat is rising after the discovery in China of a gene called mcr-1 that makes bacteria resistant to all known antibiotics. "For the world to continue to have new antibiotics, we need investments in basic science and novel incentive models for industry R&D, and to protect our existing treatments, we need new frameworks for appropriate use," said Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson.

$100 trillion problem

Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill was asked in 2014 by Britain's prime minister to conduct a full review of the problem and suggest ways to combat it. In his initial report, he estimated antibiotic and microbial resistance could kill an extra 10 million people a year and cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if it is not brought under control. While the problem of infectious bugs becoming drug-resistant has been a feature of medicine since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928, it has grown in recent years as drugmakers have cut back investment in the field. In their Davos declaration, the companies pledged to encourage more appropriate use of new and existing antibiotics, including more judicious use of the drugs in livestock.

The bacterium Eleftheria terrae makes an antibiotic that could be a weapon against resistant infections.​

They also promised to increase investment in research and development "that meets global public health needs" and work to ensure affordable access to antibiotics all over the world, at all levels of income. Britain's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, said the declaration was "a clear sign of industry's collective commitment to beating the threat of antimicrobial resistance." "I look forward to seeing an advancement of discussions between companies and governments on how we build new and sustainable market models that properly incentivize the discovery and development of new antibiotics, whilst ensuring affordable access to these crucial drugs for all," she said.

Drug Firms Ask Governments to Join Fight Against Superbugs

 

[longknife]

Just go back to the old time homeopathic cures!

 

[Valerie]

 

[waltky]

Usin' nanoparticles to fight superbugs...

Nanoparticles 20,000 times smaller than human hair can tackle 'superbugs' – study
21 Jan, 2016 - There could be a new way to tackle so-called superbugs – and it comes in the form of nanoparticles that are 20,000 times smaller than a human hair. A new study claims the nanoparticles managed to kill 92 percent of drug-resistant bacterial cells.

In an effort to fight drug-resistant infections known as 'superbugs,' a team of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder introduced light-activated nanoparticles, known as quantum dots, which resemble tiny commercial semiconductors used in consumer electronics. According to the study, published in the journal Nature Materials on Wednesday, the quantum dots were successful in killing 92 percent of drug-resistant lab-grown bacterial cells. Twenty-thousand times smaller than a human hair, the tiny size of the quantum dots is seen as a major advantage in tackling superbugs, according to the researchers. "By shrinking these semiconductors down to the nanoscale, we're able to create highly specific interactions within the cellular environment that only target the infection," senior study author and CU-Boulder assistant professor Prashant Nagpal said in a press release.

The quantum dots are inactive in the dark and active on command via light exposure. This enables scientists to adjust the wavelength to kill the affected cells. Previous efforts to thwart superbugs have largely failed, due to the bacteria's ability to rapidly adapt and develop immunity to antibiotics such as penicillin. And although superbugs will always have the ability to adapt and fight treatment, Nagpal believes that scientists and the medical community would be able to “quickly tailor these quantum dots to come up with a new therapy and therefore fight back faster in this evolutionary race.”

Clostridium difficile.​

Being able to control the quantum dots could also reduce or eliminate potential side effects of other treatment methods, and could pave the way for combating HIV and cancer. "Antibiotics are not just a baseline treatment for bacterial infections, but HIV and cancer as well," said Anushree Chatterjee, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU-Boulder and a senior author of the study. "Failure to develop effective treatments for drug-resistant strains is not an option, and that's what this technology moves closer to solving." The quantum dots are a huge improvement from metal nanoparticles, which were found in previous studies to fight antibiotic-resistant infections, but which also carry the risk of wreaking havoc on surrounding cells indiscriminately.

Nagpal and Chatterjee are co-founders of a startup that can sequence genetic profiles using a single molecule – a technology which could potentially aid in the diagnosis and treatment of superbug strains. The two have filed a patent on the quantum dot technology. The study's release coincides with more than 80 international drug and biotech firms urging governments to work with them to combat superbugs. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, the firms called for coordinated efforts to cut the unnecessary use of antibiotics and support the development of new ones, including through changing drug prices and investing in research. The appeal is outlined in the ‘Declaration on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance,’ which was signed by the participants. An increasing number of infections are evolving to become drug-resistant, and by 2050 superbugs are expected to kill about 10 million people annually, according to 'The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance' analysis, commissioned by the UK government in 2014.

Nanoparticles 20,000 times smaller than human hair can tackle 'superbugs' – study

See also:

3-minute test to detect superbugs and potentially E. coli & venereal diseases trialed
10 Jan, 2016 - Oxford scientists have developed a three-minute computerized blood test that analyzes superbugs and bacteria resistant to many types of antibiotics, to pick the most effective cure. It’s designed to stop patients taking excessively powerful drugs.

The sample test device is the size of a USB stick and requires no special expertise from a health worker. The Mykrobe Predictor program prescribes exactly what is needed to deal with a specific disease, and considerably shortens the treatment period. The Mykrobe Predictor program has been trialed in three hospitals, in Brighton, Oxford and Leeds on samples from 4,500 patients.

The test developed at Oxford’s Wellcome Trust for Human Genetics has proved the software used to find pathogenic agents was 99 percent accurate at identifying antibiotic resistance in the MRSA superbug, and more than 82 percent accurate at detecting tuberculosis. “Although this test deals only with TB and MRSA, we expect these methods to be extended to E.coli, pneumonia, gonorrhoea and other STDs," the Daily Mail cited the creator of the Mykrobe Predictor computer programme, Dr Zamin Iqbal, as saying . “We can test in minutes and now get an answer on which drugs can be used to treat a TB infection in two weeks, instead of up to 17 weeks, which it takes using current technology that has not changed in decades,” Dr Iqbal said.

MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria strain.​

Long believed to be an illness of the past, tuberculosis has re-appeared in the UK in recent years with the influx of migrants and asylum seekers. In some parts of London the rate of TB infection is higher than in countries such as Eritrea, Iraq and Rwanda, with 2,500 cases registered in the British capital alone last year, according to a report issued by the London Assembly in October 2015. Just as in MRSA superbug cases, some forms of tuberculosis (DR-TB, MDR-TB) are resistant to the most powerful antibiotics.

The same applies to E.coli. Last December, Public Health England registered two British patients infected with a strain of E.coli resistant to even polymyxins, the “last-resort” powerful antibiotic. This tendency is due to medical practice over the last few decades, when patients were prescribed omnipotent “kill-them-all” antibiotics. On one hand they caused mutations of bacteria into drug-resistant forms, and on the other intoxicated patients with overly powerful medications.

3-minute test to detect superbugs and potentially E. coli & venereal diseases trialed

Related:

Apocalypse looming? Antibiotic resistant diseases will cause social breakdown, say scientists
17 Sep, 2015 - The impending failure of antibiotics to treat life-threatening diseases could cause a social and economic “apocalypse” in Britain and throughout the first world, scientists warn.

Medical experts predict many dangerous diseases will become completely resistant to antibiotics in the near future, causing social unrest on an unprecedented level. The crisis could result in people barricading themselves into enclaves as the health system collapses under the strain of chronic diseases, scientist Adam Roberts told the British Science Festival last week. The senior lecturer in microbial disease at University College London warned the failure of antibiotics could result in wars and civil unrest and people fight over medical treatments.

A briefing paper prepared for the government and Wellcome Trust warns that huge advances against diseases made possible since the discovery of penicillin could be temporary. “Resistance to antibiotics has now become a major concern because doctors are left with fewer effective treatments for serious and life-threatening infections,” the authors write. “It is becoming clear that the success of conventional antibiotics may have only been temporary and we now anticipate a long-term, generational challenge to find new therapies as fast as bacteria become resistant to them. Worse, the search for new conventional antibiotics has become far less productive.” The paper states that £250 million (US$388 million) will be made available for 10 new classes of “alternatives to antibiotics.”

Scientist Mike Turner said antibody-based treatments for drug-resistant lung infections could reach the NHS within seven years. “Yes, there’s an apocalyptic scenario out there,” the head of Infection and Immunology at the Wellcome Trust said. “I don’t expect it to come to pass, but only if we actually get agreement on making things change now.” A report published on Thursday by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) in Washington DC and New Delhi demonstrates the global scale of the problem.

‘The State of the World’s Antibiotics 2015’ paper found a growing resistance to antibiotics from diseases such as E. coli and the highly dangerous pathogen Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The report states that limiting the overuse and misuse of antibiotics is the only sustainable solution. “We need to focus 80 percent of our global resources on stewardship and no more than 20 percent on drug development,” said report co-author and CDDEP Director Ramanan Laxminarayan. “No matter how many new drugs come out, if we continue to misuse them, they might as well have never been discovered.”

Apocalypse looming? Antibiotic resistant diseases will cause social breakdown, say scientists

 

[waltky]

Quantum Dots May Someday Fight Superbugs Inside Our Bodies...

Tiny Robots May Someday Fight Superbugs Inside Our Bodies
January 05, 2017 — Scientists have been creating antibiotics to kill deadly bacteria for nearly 80 years. Unfortunately, the bacteria that cause disease can adapt so quickly, some have evolved into superbugs that are resistant to all antibiotics, and making new drugs is a long, expensive, involved process.

That’s why scientists at the University of Colorado’s Biofrontiers Institute are looking beyond biologically-based medicine. They’re developing an “antibiotic” that they can update with the click of a keyboard.

Quantum dots

In a high-tech lab at the University of Colorado, Anushree Chatterjee wears safety goggles and purple gloves as she carefully reaches into a sterile container to examine Petri dishes that hold some of the world’s most dangerous microbes: disease-causing superbugs that are hard to stop with traditional drugs. “They were resistant to, in some cases, more than 20 different antibiotics," she explained. "They can actually live in pretty high levels of antibiotics. Not only can they survive but they can actually thrive in the presence of antibiotics.” It takes years to develop traditional, biologically based antibiotics to fight them. Chatterjee’s husband and colleague, Prashant Nagpal, says that in the meantime, we’re losing the race against superbugs. But he had an idea: "Let’s develop a system that adapts, if not faster, then at least at the same rate as the microbes do.”

Ultraviolet light reveals different "species" of quantum dots that have been programmed to attack specific microbes.​

To reach this goal, Nagpal’s lab analyzes the DNA of superbugs, then creates a highly targeted antibiotic, not in years, but in just a few days. He does this by making the antibiotics out of quantum dots - tiny semiconductor particles. "Anytime we think of semiconductors," he says with a laugh, "we always think, oh, it’s going to end up in a camera, or on top of our rooftops. What we've shown here, is you could use the same semiconductors, shrink them down and put them inside cells.” Each quantum dot is 20,000 times smaller than a living cell. When millions are mixed with water, ultraviolet light reveals different varieties that glow in beautiful colors of yellow, orange and green.

For stopping a superbug, Nagpal says a tube as small as a thimble can pack a mighty punch. And if the superbugs adapt quickly, researchers can quickly change the next round of quantum dots. “One of the exciting things about this therapy is we have these tiny little quantum dots, but if you start taking one atom off the surface or add one more, it’s going to change the radicals it potentially forms, it changes its potential," Nagpal said. "So if the bugs adapt to this particular free radical, we have a lot more options. We can change the composition. . . we can change the size, we can change the shape of these dots.”

Tiny light-activated missiles

 

[waltky]

Zappin' Superbugs with Ultraviolet Light...

Ultraviolet Light From 'Robot' Kills Hospital Superbugs, Study Finds
January 17, 2017 - A new study shows that bathing hospital rooms in ultraviolet light kills drug-resistant superbugs that put the health of patients at serious risk.

The UV light is emitted by a "robot" wheeled into a room before a patient checks in. A study by Duke University researchers in North Carolina found that ultraviolet C light, or UVC, switched on for a half-hour after the previous patient checked out can reduce the presence of drug-resistant bacteria by 30 percent. The UVC light poses no risk to humans, unlike other types of ultraviolet light emitted by the sun that can cause skin cancer. The 1.5-meter-tall, cylindrical UVC robots are used in what's called a terminal cleaning process. That's when hospital personnel scrub a room from floor to ceiling with chemical agents to try to eliminate all traces of bacteria that a sick patient may have left behind.

Drug-resistant superbugs, which can live on flat surfaces, are the most serious worry. Often-lethal microbes like MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aeurus, do not respond to standard antibiotics, making it very hard to treat patients who become infected with them. But Deverick Anderson, director of Duke's Center for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention, said UV light reflects off flat surfaces and "can really get into all the nooks and crannies of a hospital room."

An employee displays MRSA bacteria strain — a drug-resistant "superbug" — inside a petri dish containing agar jelly for bacterial culture in a microbiological laboratory in Berlin.​

The Duke study, published in the journal The Lancet, was conducted at nine hospitals. Researchers compared the effectiveness of using UVC along with different chemical agents or only a cleaning agent. Fifteen to 20 percent of hospital rooms were cleaned using the UV robots. Anderson said the devices were used in rooms where it was suspected that superbugs lurked. These rooms included intensive care units and rooms where patients had been treated for drug-resistant bacterial infections. The researchers found that the cleaning strategy of using the robot with a cleaning agent called quaternary ammonium worked best against MRSA.

The cleaning protocol was most successful with actively growing bacteria, including MRSA and vancomycin-resistant enterococci or VRE, and less so with those microbes that form dormant, protective spores, like the intestinal pathogen C. difficile. The protocol "literally gets to the DNA, disrupts the DNA, and kills the bacteria," said Anderson. Anderson said hospitals involved in the study are continuing to use the UVC robots, which cost about $90,000 each. The next step, according to Anderson, is to see whether incorporating the devices into daily room cleaning, during a patient's hospital stay, does a better job of eliminating superbugs than using the robots after patients have checked out.

Ultraviolet Light From 'Robot' Kills Hospital Superbugs, Study Finds

See also:

Zimbabwe Doctors Call for Clean Water to Fight Typhoid Outbreak
January 17, 2017 — In Zimbabwe, doctors and aid organizations have called on the government to improve the country’s water and sanitation amid a typhoid outbreak.

Authorities have started dismantling vendors' malls as part of efforts to contain the outbreak that has struck more than 200 people in the capital, Harare, killing two, and has been detected in other parts of Zimbabwe. Vendors say authorities must ensure citizens have adequate clean water and sanitation.

Vendors continue to sell their goods in unhygienic conditions which experts say provide a breeding ground for the salmonella typhi bacteria which cause typhoid, in Harare, Zimbabwe​

Evans Masitara, the secretary general of the group Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, told journalists in Harare that President Robert Mugabe’s government has to do more to contain the outbreak. “We really do not want to mix issues here. Typhoid is being driven by this water and sewerage problem and not by vendors. The meat vendors, definitely is a health problem; but it is not the driver of typhoid. It is an issue which needs to be addressed, but for now I think the priority should be on water and sewerage systems and refuse collection,” Masitara said. Last week, the doctors group called on the government to release funds to ensure medicine imports are not delayed. On Tuesday, the doctors said their call had not been answered positively.

'Deplorable'

Zimbabwe's Health Minister David Parirenyatwa (right, with glasses), accompanied by local minister Saviour Kasukuwere, talks to journalists after visiting Mbare township, the epicenter of the current typhoid outbreak in Harare, Jan. 2017 (S. Mhofu/VOA). Parirenyatwa has called the lack of hygiene shocking and deplorable.​

Health Minister David Parirenyatwa on Tuesday visited Mbare township, the epicenter of the typhoid outbreak. He blamed the city of Harare for failing to ensure hygienic conditions. “We will not be able to get rid of typhoid or cholera or diarrheal diseases as long as we have conditions like these ones. Even if I say, 'Every hospital in this country, stop treating anything else except typhoid or cholera,' we still do not have a solution. The solution is that we still need hygienic conditions in this country, particularly here in Harare. The filth that is there. The worms that are breeding on top and under the cabbages that are sold, and the sewage that is flowing is just a shocking, a deplorable state.... As long as you do not clean this, you will not get rid of typhoid,” Parirenyatwa said.

In 2008-2009, a cholera outbreak killed more than 4,000 people in Zimbabwe. The waterborne bacterial disease can be treated with antibiotics, but still kills more than 220,000 people worldwide each year.

Zimbabwe Doctors Call for Clean Water to Fight Typhoid Outbreak

 

[SixFoot]

New superbugs are becoming resistant to modern medicines so English scientists went back to a thousand year old manuscript to recreate a cure for eye infection which works against modern strains.


Wonder just how many so-called “Witches Brew” remedies will be found to be effective? Read more @ 1 000-Year-Old Saxon Remedy Kills Superbugs Power Line

Hell, go back even further than that, and you'll find the cure for all those cancers that people never contracted until recent times.

United States Patent: 6630507

Inventors: Hampson; Aidan J. (Irvine, CA), Axelrod; Julius (Rockville, MD), Grimaldi; Maurizio (Bethesda, MD)
Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC)
Family ID: 26767641
Appl. No.: 09/674,028
Filed: February 2, 2001
PCT Filed: April 21, 1999
PCT No.: PCT/US99/08769
PCT Pub. No.: WO99/53917
PCT Pub. Date: October 28, 1999

The government has had the patent on your natural medicine for 16 years now, and is still telling you that it has no acceptable medical use. lol