Adventure Ausrama Blog

When things get tough people will try anything. Antibiotics are no longer working, so researchers are asking for newly mixed compounds by chemists to be sent along to them. This a new project set up by the University of Queensland. The belief is that scientists are working on the same middle of the road compounds. It is in new compounds where hope lies. Every day new compounds are made and just discarded. They are never screened to see what they can do against pathogens. Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (CO-ADD researchers located at UQ are ready to test the compounds against fungi and bacteria, especially superbugs. This will work because rights remain with the chemists who provide the samples. Funding has been been gained from sources in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., France and India. The project began in February and will be ongoing. Prevalent diseases like malaria an dengue fever will be included in the target list. The database will be open...

If your current collection of medications to fight disease no longer works, look to the past. That is what scientists are doing. They are reading through books hundreds of years old on "home" remedies. A medieval book mentions a substance that has shown promise in destroying methicillin resistant "staphylococcus aureus" (MRSA), a damaging infection common in hospitals. The potion was used a thousand years ago in Viking times. Notably, the "cure" was used to treat a simple stye, a common eye complaint in that era. The concoction was found in a book called Bald's Leechbook. Though the title is rather off putting there is a lot of truth in it. Work is gathering apace with the formation of the AncientBiotics Project. This was the first attempt at testing an ancient remedy. The future looks promising based on this positive finding. Apparently, medieval medicine was not all quackery. Though misguided by blood letting many of the po...

A world pandemic could occur at any time. Indeed, the chance of it happening eventually is assured. With the efficacy of antibiotics weakening there could be no treatment. Science could take months or years to find a "cure". Poultry is seen as the real danger though other animals close to Man are also a threat. A staph strain with high resistance has been identified in Australian pigs. No antibiotics have knocked out the "bug". The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has migrated here from Europe, Singapore or Canada. It is a bit of a mystery how the strain got into Australia. No live importing of pigs is allowed. Could the strain still be in pig carcasses used in the canned meat industry?  The only other possibility is human carriers. Staph can live in the nasal passages of people for more than two weeks. If a human carrier gets close to an animal the staph can be breathed in and the animal becomes sick. Horses are also a "wea...

People who live in industrialized countries are physically weak when they are attacked by parasites, microbes and viruses. This is because children are increasingly being brought up in clean, sterile environments. If they are not exposed to these dangers as children they could die if "bugs" invade their bodies when they become adults. In Ecuador, the Shuar people have a high childhood death rate, three times that in Western countries. However, as adults their immune systems are stronger. A group of Shuar adults was tested for inflammatory levels. Some had very low levels. Others had moderately high levels, below the chronic level, probably because they were in the process of becoming ill or had been sick. Western adults have a generally high level of inflammation, constantly. There bodies fight "minor" infections all the time. Consequently, damage is caused to the body resulting in diabetes, cancer, heart attack and stroke. A Chronic level of inflammatio...

Fungal infection is the most difficult thing to treat.  Taking medication and applying ointment may seem to solve the problem - for a while.  Unfortunately, the skin may appear to be free of infection but it is still there and will reappear. It is not commonly known that deaths from fungal infection are higher than all the deaths from malaria and tuberculosis.  Treatment for other ailments can involve immunossuppressive medication.  This allows fungal infections to run wild.  You would think there is enough demand and money for pharmaceutical companies to develop better anti-fungal drugs.  However, sufferers do not know how deadly the "disease" can be, so they are not prepared to pay a high price for new treatments.  This is despite the fact that fungal infection can appear in any part of the body. Unfortunately, the World Health Organization shows little interest in the problem.  Doctors also tend to brush aside fungal infections when examinin...

People are taking more prescription drugs. Western countries including Australia make them easy to obtain because they are heavily subsidized. As developing countries move forward they too are inclined to make medications available to everyone. We take it for granted that all medicines will be "out there" ready to buy. Last year in the US 196 common drugs were in short supply. Less than 100 ran short in 2006. Most of the medications were for anaesthetic, cancer or anti-infection use. Recently, shortages became apparent in Australia. Use of alternative drugs is not ideal. Side effects and less effective treatment occur. It seems pharmaceutical manufacturers are only interested in producing products with safe patents that have high profit margins. When patents expire and governments want cheap generic drugs they are becoming harder to obtain. Governments are economically inelastic when it comes to what they will pay. They offer drug companies a fixed amount - tak...