Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Superbug will soon attack Hospitals?!

People in scrubs uniforms are alert nowadays because of the widespread news regarding NDM-1 or commonly known as the new "superbug".



NDM-1 bacteria is a newly-identified superbug that is spreading globally. The NDM-1 stands for “New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase” or New Delhi-Metallo-1 (NDM-1) named after the capital city of India, where it was first identified.NDM-1 gene has been found inside the E. Coli bacteria and Klebsiella pneumonia. This superbug is antibiotic-resistant and has the potential to become more devastating than the H1N1 Pandemic because it makes bacteria extremely resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most potent class called carbapenems, the kind of drug that is reserved for emergency use and treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bugs like MRSA and C-Difficile. However there are still two drugs that can stand up to carbapenem-resistant infections. These are colistin, an older antibiotic that has some toxic side effects, and Pfizer's Tygacil.




What caused NDM-1?


This superbug is said to be caused by the medical tourism especially those who have undergone cosmetic surgeries and international travel especially those who received recent medical care in India. And since this bacteria was spread by travel it has the possibility to spread very quickly not just in India, Pakistan and UK but even around the world.



What are its effects/symptoms?


The NDM-1 enzyme can lead to pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and blood infections. Health officials have revealed that the NDM-1 Bacteria can spread in person-to-person contact. E. Coli symptoms are diarrhea,abdominal cramps,nausea, and fatigue while Klebsiella pneumonia's symptoms are fever, chills, cough, dizziness, wheezing and urinary tract infection (UTI)



Who have high risk of being infected?


Those people who have recently been to India or Pakistan, those who have been in contact with someone who has recently traveled to India or Pakistan and those who have weakened immune systems.



What must be done?


The most effective way to get rid of this superbug is to make new kind of antibiotics that could cure NHM-1 infected patients however most drug companies have little interest in developing new antibiotics because they are not as profitable as other drugs, they are only taken for a few days, unlike drugs for high blood pressure, pain or cholesterol which are taken for long periods.So as for now we will settle for the answer that this superbug is not that curable by ordinary antibiotics. What we could only do is to prevent infection by avoiding those people who have high risk of being infected. Let's just settle for this however by any case that this bacteria will be widespread this could be another problem for the society, government, hospitals and the world itself.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

From Being a Patient to Being a Doctor...


This is a story of a woman who faced her past without regrets and her future with determination.

'After all that I've been through, I think I can use the experiences I've had with both good and bad doctors to help others.'

In a young life blighted by serious illnesses, Allison John has unwillingly made medical history by becoming the first person in Britain to have all her major organs transplanted.


Her health problems date from infancy, when she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at six weeks old. The incurable genetic condition causes the lungs to clog up with mucus and sufferers are unable to absorb fats and other nutrients from food. At the age of 14 her liver began to fail and she was told she would need a transplant. An agonising 16-month wait for a match followed before the transplant was carried out in September 1995.


It was only during surgery that doctors realised how ill she was, with as little as three days to live without a transplant. She had originally been offered a donor liver four months earlier - but had generously given it to another patient. By then, her education had been affected to such an extent that she failed to get the A-level grades needed to start a medical degree, so she opted to study neuroscience at Cardiff instead. Six months after enrolling in 1996, however, she was told she was suffering from lung failure.


A match was found in August 1997 and Miss John was given four hours to get from her family home in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, to Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, where the new heart and lungs - they are replaced together as a package - were waiting. She made it with only minutes to spare after the ambulance got lost.


She then enjoyed good health for several years and completed her neuroscience degree in 2001, graduating with a 2:1, enough to get her into the university's College of Medicine the following October. But in April 2005 came another devastating blow: The medication she was taking to stop her body rejecting the transplanted organs had caused renal failure and she would need a new kidney. Her father David, 61, was found to be a match and the operation was carried out in December 2006. On her epidural she remained fully conscious, feeling the doctors 'tugging and pulling but no pain'.


She received a new liver, kidney, heart and lungs in a series of difficult operations spanning 12 years to tackle the major health problems that at one stage left her just three days from death.


Miss John, who lives in Cardiff with her fiance Nathan Angell, 30, graduated from Cardiff University last month. She is now about to start work as a junior doctor at Neville Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, 30 miles away. Ever since she was a schoolgirl she had wanted to be a physician in medical uniforms. Today she has finally fulfilled the dream after graduating from medical college.


Friday, August 6, 2010

Hospital Food Goes Green


This may not be a news anymore because this happened last September 2009 but this is worth noting for. There is a program called Balance Menus which is a voluntary program that seeks to improve nutrition and benefit the environment by reducing meat purchasing among participating hospitals by 20 percent within 12 months. The program also promotes shifting towards serving more sustainably produced meat.

Developed and piloted by San Francisco Physicians for Social Responsibility, Balanced Menus
was first implemented in 2008 in four San Francisco Bay Area hospitals. In September 2009,
Health Care Without Harm launched the program nationally.

This program was implemented in four San Francisco Bay Area hospitals: Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the San Francisco VA Medical Center, the John Muir Health Medical Center, and one anonymous hospital. The hospitals vary in size as well as medical and food services provided, representing a broad range of possibilities for the program.

So what is the result of this program. Did the healthcare personnel,patients,doctors and nurses in medical uniforms grew thinner and unhealthier at the span of this program. Definitely not.

The Balanced Menus program implementation in these four hospitals exceeded the 20 percent meat reduction goal, and yielded substantial savings in costs and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as, potentially,some improvements in health for those eating reduced quantities of meat. The program’s expansion provides an important opportunity to further advance these goals. With a larger sample of hospitals and a longer time-span, future program evaluation work can gain an even clearer perspective on the program’s impacts.

This is actually a great news! If only all hospitals would do this, then even patients will be healthier and doctors too!