Deadly Drug-Resistant Bacteria Outbreak In IL Linked To Eyedrops: CDC

[Vmedvil]

It seems a deadly drug resistant bacteria outbreak in IL linked to eyedrops, read more at https://patch.com/illinois/across-il/deadly-drug-resistant-bacteria-outbreak-il-linked-eyedrops-cdc

 

Do you think that bacteriophages should be deployed to contain the outbreak of this drug resistant bacteria?

[OceanBreeze]

This raises some other, more important, questions in my mind.

1). Why would anyone import and use a sanitary product, such as eye drops, from India? India has some very serious sanitation problems: “Out of its population of 1.3 billion people, 91 million people (6% of the population) lack access to safe water, and 746 million people (54%) lack access to safely managed household sanitation facilities”

2). How does a rare and deadly drug-resistant bacterium, namely Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, find its way into a supposed super sanitary product like eye drops? Is this a case of International bio-terrorism?

One thing is for sure, some people will be very wealthy after all the lawsuits are settled. Some of those same people, unfortunately, may end up blind or at least visually impaired; and at least one person has already died.

I can think of no acceptable excuse for this. Heads need to roll.

 

 

[write4u]

To combat bacterial drug resistance, there is a whole new field emerging to combat bacterial virulence.

It is now known that bacteria communicate with each other via a chemical language.  When there are sufficient "voices" (chemical words) this triggers a n action potential in all bacteria simultaneously so that there can be a concerted attack on the victims defenses. A single bacteria is no match for the body's defenses.

This communication is achieved by signaling hormones that are "read" by receptors and trigger "action potentials".  This ability for communication is called "quorum sensing".  When there are sufficient number of bacteria present the density triggers virulence in all bacteria simultaneously.

Using the bacterial language we can prevent the bacteria from achieving "quorum sensing" without killing the bacteria and causing drug resistance. We can render bacteria "deaf" and "dumb", thereby preventing virulence triggering! 

Bonnie Bassler, https://molbio.princeton.edu/people/bonnie-l-bassler , has a delightful video that is a must see to get a glimpse of the potentials for non-drug resistant causing treatments.

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by write4u