Sunday, January 29, 2012

NATIONAL NEWS

• New Killer bacteria on the prowl
  • After the scary New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-1 or the “superbug” was detected two years ago, the world is now faced with the community-acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (ca-MRSA) bacterium that is resistant to almost all common antibiotics;
  • The British medical journal The Lancet warns that the drug-resistant bacteria could spark a “pandemic.”;
  • The bacteria are transmitted via skin, through towels, clothing or direct body contact. All it takes is a small abrasion to provide them access to a victim's bloodstream. Festering pustules develop at the infection site, at which point the pathogens are also capable of corroding the lungs. If doctors wait too long, patients can die very quickly;
  • In India, where poor hygiene and the availability of over-the-counter antibiotics lead to development of resistance, an estimated 100 to 200 million people are reportedly already carriers of these virtually unbeatable killer bacteria. The killer bugs have also reached England, presumably through medical tourists who travelled to India for cosmetic surgery, and reportedly already infected several hundred people. A few cases have also turned up in Germany;
  • There are 2 strains – the highly drug-resistant hospital-acquired MRSA (ha-MRSA) strains, which primarily affect the elderly and people in hospitals and nursing homes and the ca-MRSA affects healthy young people.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• Japan leads effort to insulate Asia from the Euro Crisis
  • Wary of the European debt crisis causing collateral damage all around the world, India, Japan and South Korea are working together to prevent the Eurozone turmoil from spreading to Asia;
  • The efforts of the three major Asian economies were shared with the delegates at the World Economic Forum meeting by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.