pneumonia

research on health

News 21 October 2022

Researchers study microbial interactions in International Space Station

New Delhi, 21st October 2022: Along with opening the doors of space travel to the common people, the efforts of researchers are continuing to ensure that travel is safer into the sky. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have studied the interactions between microbes in the International Space Station (ISS). The study will help devise strategies for the disinfection of space stations to minimise any potential impact of microbes on the health of astronauts. During spaceflight, crews may have altered immunity and limited access to terrestrial medical facilities. Therefore, studying the microbes inhabiting the space station becomes important to understand the risks associated with short-term and long-term space travel on the health of astronauts. The present study was motivated by the earlier observations of the dominance of Klebsiella pneumoniae on the surfaces of the ISS. This pathogen has been known to cause pneumonia and other nosocomial infections. The researchers were broadly interested in understanding how this bacteria affects the growth of other microbes in the vicinity and the possible implications it could have. The researchers analysed the microbial sample data taken across three space flights at seven locations on the ISS. The study found that Klebsiella pneumoniae, a major microbe that resides on the ISS, is beneficial to various other microbes also present on the ISS, especially the bacteria from the Pantoeagenus. However, it was found that its presence was hampering the growth of Aspergillus fungus. This computational observation was further tested through laboratory experiments, and it was found that the presence of K. pneumoniae was indeed detrimental to the growth of the Aspergillus fungus. Dr Karthik Raman, Associate Professor at the Bhupat & Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences and a core member of the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBCDSAI), IIT Madras, collaborated with Nitin Kumar Singh and Dr Kasthuri Venkateswaran, Senior Research Scientist at JPL. Dr Karthik Raman, IIT Madras, said, “The microbiome of the built environment has a huge impact on human health. Controlled environments such as the ISS harbour a variety of…

World TB day Graphics

Health, India, international, News 3 November 2021

Will new scientific breakthroughs spur the end of TB efforts?

Fight against the biggest killer infectious disease was not on track to end the ancient disease (TB) even before Covid-19. But Covid-19 impact has further pushed the efforts to end TB backwards. The latest research shows promise though with new and better tools to diagnose and treat TB. Will new tools to diagnose and treat TB help pivot the fight to end TB by 2030? Is it not a paradox if a preventable, diagnosable, treatable, and curable disease becomes a top killer? Till Covid-19 struck our world, Tuberculosis (TB) – a disease that can be prevented, diagnosed and treated – was the most deadly infectious disease worldwide. The covid-19 pandemic has also adversely impacted the fight against TB, as well as other diseases. Not surprisingly, the latest Global TB Report 2021 paints a grim picture of the TB disease burden, with the Covid-19 pandemic acting spoilsport and further jeopardising the progress on all fronts of TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care and control. Despite growing efforts spanning over several decades, most of the world was not able to satisfactorily prevent TB, prevent the conversion of latent TB into active TB disease, diagnose the disease timely or put all those diagnosed on effective standard treatments – and most importantly, avert untimely deaths. Why are we off-track on most TB targets? During the Covid-19 pandemic, another global health threat that has become even more severe is of TB. We are off track on most of the global TB targets, such as, the goal to end TB by 2030 which is enshrined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or the targets of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s End TB Strategy, or promises made in the 2018 Political Declaration of the UN High-Level Meeting on TB. We missed delivering on TB promises for 2020 The End TB Strategy milestones for 2015-2020 aimed at a 35% reduction in the number of TB deaths and a 20% reduction in the TB incidence. However, TB deaths and incidence have reduced by only 9.2% and 11% respectively during this period. The negative impacts on TB mortality and…

World Health Organization

Health, India, international, News 1 September 2021

WHO releases a new compendium of innovative health technologies for COVID-19 and other priority diseases

New Delhi/Geneva. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative health technologies that can help countries improve health outcomes by providing shortcuts to solutions despite a lack of infrastructure and resources. However, many of the new technologies that have come to market are unaffordable or unsuitable for low- and middle-income countries. To ensure that all countries benefit from health innovation, WHO has compiled a compendium of 24 new technologies that can be used in low-resource settings. WHO will continue to work to promote sustainable supplies “Innovative technologies are accelerating access to healthcare everywhere, but we must ensure that they are readily available in all health facilities, fairly priced and quality-assured,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, WHO Assistant Director-General for Access to Health Products. “WHO will continue to work with governments, funders and manufacturers to promote sustainable supplies of these tools during and beyond the COVID emergency.” The compendium’s main objective was to select and assess technologies that can have an immediate and future impact on COVID-19 preparedness and response, potentially improve health outcomes and quality of life, and/or offer a solution to an unmet medical need. 15 of these technologies are already commercially available in countries, while the rest are still at the prototype stage. The compendium includes simple items ranging from a colourized bleach additive, which allows the naked eye to identify non-sterilized surfaces and objects, to more complex though easy-to-use equipment such as a  portable respiratory monitoring system and ventilators with an extended battery that can be used where electricity is not available or unstable. The list also includes a deployable health facility for emergencies decked out in a shipping container. Some of these technologies are already in use and have proven their value through pilot programmes. For example, the solar-powered oxygen concentrator has been highly effective in treating pneumonia, which kills 900,000 children a year, in a regional children’s hospital in Somalia’s Galmudug state. Studies have demonstrated that reliable access to oxygen can reduce child deaths due to pneumonia by 35%. Given the shortage of oxygen in numerous countries, a concentrator is a critical tool in the…

corona virus live update

Opinion 15 April 2020

Are Ventilators Killing More People Than They’re Saving??

“Researchers in Wuhan…reported that, of 37 critically ill Covid-19 patients who were put on mechanical ventilators, 30 died within a month. In a U.S. study of patients in Seattle, only one of the seven patients older than 70 who were put on a ventilator survived; just 36% of those younger than 70 did.” (“With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19”, STAT News) Think about that for a minute. What these figures mean is that, if you’re over 70 and you’re put on a ventilator because you have coronavirus, you’re probably going to die. More importantly, it means that it was probably the ventilator that killed you. Isn’t that something the public ought to know? I think it is. “One in seven” is very poor odds. They aren’t the odds a rational person would bet his life on unless he had a death wish or a very serious gambling problem. So what’s going on here, and why is there so much misleading blabber about ventilators? The root problem seems to be that coronavirus is a relatively new phenomenon and the methods for treating it are still in their early phases. Nothing is set in stone, not yet at least. Even so, you might have noticed that, when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson contracted the infection and was bundled off to ICU, the medical team did NOT put him on a ventilator, but put him on oxygen instead. And the difference couldn’t be more striking, because today, after 3 days in ICU, Johnson is alive, whereas he probably would be dead if he was intubated. Yes, I am making a judgment about something of which I cannot be entirely certain, but I think I’m probably right. If Johnson had been put on a ventilator, he probably would have died. But, why, that’s what we want to know? The answer to that question can be found in the article cited above. Take a look: “Many (coronavirus) patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead. But they’re not gasping for air, their hearts aren’t racing, and…