What is Drug-Resistant TB? Symptoms and Prevention

Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial disease that spreads via air from person to person. TB most commonly affects the lungs, but it could also affect other regions of the body such as the brain, kidneys, or spine. Most cases of tuberculosis are treatable and curable; nonetheless, people with tuberculosis can die if they do not receive effective treatment.

It is well-known that it can take up to 6-9 months to complete the medicinal course. However, due to the length of its treatment, many leave it mid-way, which can later lead to drug-resistant TB.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis arises when germs grow resistant to the medications used to treat tuberculosis. This signifies that the medicine no longer has the ability to kill tuberculosis germs.

Because this variety of tuberculosis is resistant to the most strong TB medications, patients are left with far less effective treatment alternatives.

How is Drug-resistant TB spread?

Drug-susceptible and drug-resistant tuberculosis spread the same way. When a person with tuberculosis of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, talks, or sings, TB bacteria are released into the air. Depending on the circumstances, these bacteria can remain in the atmosphere for several hours. People who breathe in air contaminated with tuberculosis germs can get ill.

It is not possible to transfer tuberculosis through shaking someone’s hand, eating food or drink, touching bed sheets or toilet seats, sharing toothbrushes, or hugging.

What are the symptoms of TB?

Feelings of illness or weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats are all common signs of tuberculosis. Coughing, chest discomfort, and coughing up blood are all indications of TB illness of the lungs.

The symptoms of tuberculosis in various sections of the body vary depending on the place affected. If you have any of these symptoms, you should consult your doctor or your local health department.

Prevention

The most essential strategy to avoid the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis is to take all TB medications exactly as advised by your doctor. There should be no missed doses, and therapy should not be discontinued prematurely.

Another strategy to avoid drug-resistant tuberculosis is to avoid being exposed to known drug-resistant tuberculosis patients in confined or congested areas such as hospitals, jails, or homeless shelters. People who work in hospitals or healthcare settings where tuberculosis patients are likely to be seen should seek advice from infection control or occupational health specialists.

 

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Israeli team finds way to inject drug against COVID-19-related infections

Among the worldwide victims of COVID-19, a high number was ultimately infected by secondary bacterial infections. Some studies estimated nearly 50% succumbed this way.

New research by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem team has developed an injectable antibiotic that could have a deep impact not only in treating COVID-19 patients but also those affected by antibiotic-resistant infections.

Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz and Dr. Ahuva Cern with their team at the Laboratory of Membrane and Liposome Research at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem have been working on improving the performance of drugs in treating different illnesses, including cancer and infectious diseases, for many years. Their method is based on encapsulating the drugs in particles that can be injected into the body.

“We take well-known and established drugs and encapsulate them in two types of particles, called ‘liposomes’ because they are made of lipids, meaning fats,” Barenholz told The Jerusalem Post. 

“These particles imitate the human cell because they feature a membrane separating the outer world and the inner world of the unit.”

This way the large lipsomes can be injected locally to target the specific area of the body affected, increasing the efficacy of the cure, he said. If the drug was injected without encapsulating it first, it would just disappear before being able to display its effects.

“Small (nano)-liposomes when injected travel through the blood, and they know how to find the site of the disease,” Barenholz said.

The lab has developed several drugs employing this technique, including an anti-cancer drug called Doxil that was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration years ago and is currently used worldwide.

The new branch of the research focusing on bacterial infections managed to reformulate a highly effective topical antibiotic called Mupirocin into nano-liposomes referred to as Nano-Mupirocin to allow for its intravenous delivery. By doing so, it developed new properties to fight drug-resistant bacteria, including those responsible for secondary infections in coronavirus patients.

“We loaded the particles with this special antibiotic, which has a very different way to kill the bacteria than all others known today, and for this reason bacteria do not have the same resistance toward it,” Barenholz said.

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of the biggest medical challenges of our time, he said. According to some estimates, if a solution is not found by 2050, it could kill 10 million people every year, up from 700,000 today, he added.

“Also, in the case of flu, most people do not die from the influenza virus but from the secondary bacterial infections they develop,” Barenholz said.

Tests on different animals have shown very promising results, and a clinical trial of the treatment will start soon, most likely at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem, to exclude problems of toxicity and to assess how the drug behaves in human blood. 

“If the trial is successful, we will be able to start using the drug in some coronavirus patients or for other diseases,” Barenholz told the Post.

“It is important to highlight that in the case of antibiotics, animal studies are relatively highly predictive of what happens in humans, different than what happens in other fields, such as cancer studies,” he said.

Researchers in Barenholz’s lab are working on other projects that target COVID-19. A group is trying to use the liposome technology to deal with all steps of the viral infection, to prevent the virus’s penetration, processing inside the cells, duplication and exits. Another study aims to reduce the severe impact of the virus on the lungs, which makes the body react against the virus in a way that at some point damages the body itself, creating a very difficult situation to cure.

“In this case, I think we are about six to nine months away from clinical trials,” Barenholz said.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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UH professor examines life cycle of drug-resistant persister cells in recurrent infections

A University of Houston engineering professor is examining the life cycle of stubborn, drug-resistant persister cells in recurrent infections to find a way to destroy them. Persister cells are non-growing cell sub-populations observed in many pathogenic bacteria and they certainly live up to their name - they persist, and are not phased in the least by current medications. Scientists believe they cause the recurrence of chronic health issues like airway infections in cystic fibrosis patients, urinary tract infections and tuberculosis.

"If we know how persister cells are formed, we can target their formation mechanisms to eliminate these dangerous cell types," said Mehmet Orman, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, who is using a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to explore persister cells.

Orman believes that self-digestion, or autophagy, stimulates persister formation. In self-digestion, cells recycle essential energy molecules by eating their own protein, lipids or other bits to stay alive or temporarily survive under starvation conditions. Self-digestion is triggered by extracellular stress conditions, such as nutrient depletion, hypoxia and overpopulation.

Orman will map the self-digestion-related mechanisms in E. coli to understand how self-digestion is linked to persister cell formation. Then, he will therapeutically explore these mechanisms to identify chemical compounds that can eliminate persister cells.

"Mapping of this comprehensive bacterial pathway from its initial exogenous trigger, through its signal transduction, to the source of antibiotic tolerance, will enable us to develop affective anti-persister therapeutics."  Mehmet Orman, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering,University of Houston

Self-digestion inflicts damage on the cells and can make the cells dormant, putting them in a sleeping mode, and these dormant cells are not effected by antibiotics. The bacterium is less fit to produce protein and resume growth upon exposure to fresh nutrients, providing temporary protection against antibiotics until the self-inflicted damage is repaired.

From an evolutionary perspective, self-digestion is an important survival mechanism. This complex process, which is orchestrated by many regulatory proteins and enzymes, has been well documented in mammalian cells, but largely ignored in bacteria. "By integrating our expertise in bacterial cell biology with advanced current technologies, we aim to decipher the key components of this pathway to provide a clear and much-needed picture of bacterial self-digestion mechanisms," said Orman.

Orman, himself, is persistent. Previously he developed methods to directly measure the metabolism of persister cells. He has also discovered that persisters are mostly derived from stationary-phase cells with high metabolic activities maintained by self-digestion.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement