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Mrsa case study
Mrsa case study
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Human civilizations have existed for thousands of years but with the existence of these civilizations diseases were right there with them. Even before great civilizations emerged, such as the Greeks and Romans, diseases have been around preying on animals and villages. When a civilization emerges it means that people have come together and built a society. These societies allow for diseases to spread easily because of unsanitary conditions and people being in close contact with each other on a normal basis. But in the past few decades science has allowed us to find cures or treatments for most diseases out there, yet there are still diseases that everyone knows about going around causing the deaths of thousands of people every year. This is because most of these diseases have emerged from past diseases that have been cured or we do not have the technology to treat them yet. New diseases emerge every year from old diseases such as the flu which is why we are constantly making a new flu vaccine yearly. The way these diseases emerge is usually where a small portion of the microbe causing it is immune to whatever treatment is used to destroy it. These microbes will then multiply themselves and eventually cause a new strain of disease that needs a new treatment method.
For example, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a strain of bacteria that mutated from the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. This specific strain came about by natural selection against Methicillin, as its name suggests. The strain must have already previously existed before patients were treated with Methicillin and when they were the Methicillin killed off all of the bacteria besides the MRSA ones allowing them to spread while the host felt like the...
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... Mark. Robinson, Ashley. Randle, Gaynor. “The evolutionary history of methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 16 April 2002: 1. Web. 06 December 2013.
Gilbert, Mark. MacDonald, Judy. Gregson, Dan. “Outbreak in Alberta of community-acquired
(USA300) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in people with a history of drug use, homelessness or incarceration.” CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal 18 July 2006: 149-154. Print.
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December 2013. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/08/
Pray, Leslie. “Antibiotic Resistance, Mutation Rates and MRSA.” Scitable. 2008. Web. 06
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Plagues and Peoples written by William H. McNeill follows the patterns of epidemics and endemics within human history. It is within this history that McNeill finds parallels between diseases and humans in the forms of microparasitism and macroparasitism. Merely from the title, McNeill gives equal importance to viruses and humankind. In several instances, humans behave the same way viruses, bacteria, and parasites do in order to survive and to compete. Surprisingly enough, McNeill’s overarching theme can be summarized using his last sentence, asserting that “Infectious disease which antedated the emergence of humankind will last as long as humanity itself, and will surely remain, as it has been hitherto, one of the fundamental parameters and
Before discussing how disease has shaped history and altered cultures, it is important to understand how they themselves have developed and changed throughout history. Disease, in the broadest definition of the word, has been present since the beginning of humanity. Even ...
The outburst spread of diseases in a population causes people to panic and become hopeless. The main reason diseases spread is due to unsanitary living styles. Also when a disease first begins, it is really hard to find a cure right away. A very deadly, infectious disease known as Typhus spread during the Holocaust. Typhus is caused by rickettsia and is spread by lice and flees.
Dr. Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince’s book, Survival of the Sickest, points out the fact that diseases do not always need to be cured infact beneficial mutations is how we evolve. Although the book mainly discusses how diseases evolve humans, Moalem and Prince do discuss how we, humans shape diseases. By the simple acts of getting and giving mosquito netting, one forces the malaria virus to find a new perhaps less malicious path to survival and reproduction one that may not cure the malaria virus but may make not fatal, similar to the common
Almost no one on Earth has any immunity at all to this virus, which makes ordinary vaccines useless against it. The sudden spread of the virus into Europe foreshadows an epidemic development that could be worldwide. Ultimately, there is no way to protect ourselves against epidemics. They will keep disappearing and coming back in new forms.
The Spread of Disease In the New World The extraordinary good health of the natives prior to the coming of the Europeans would become a key ingredient in their disastrous undoing. The greatest cause of disease in America was epidemic diseases imported from Europe. Epidemic diseases killed with added virulence in the " virgin soil" populations of the Americas. The great plague that arose in the Old World never emerged on their own in the western hemisphere and did not spread across oceans until Columbus' discovery.
While the Europeans were traveling to the New World, they often brought domesticated animals with them for sources of food and livestock. When animals and humans are living in close quarters together, it is very likely for exposure to germs to occur. New diseases were brought over by foreigners looking for fame and gold that killed off many of the natives in the new lands. The natives did not stand a chance against these new threats because of a lack of knowledge and supplies to cure themselves. Once the Europeans established diseases as they made land in the New World, their journey had only become easier as their competition were being wiped out from the rapid spread.
Life History and Characteristics: Staphylococcus aureus is a gram positive bacterium that is usually found in the nasal passages and on the skin of 15 to 40% of healthy humans, but can also survive in a wide variety of locations in the body. This bacterium is spread from person to person or to fomite by direct contact. Colonies of S. aureus appear in pairs, chains, or clusters. S. aureus is not an organism that is contained to one region of the world and is a universal health concern, specifically in the food handling industries.
Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them. This triggered the largest population decline in all recorded history. Fifty percent of the Native American population had died of disease within twenty years. Soon after, Native Americans began to question their religion and doubted the ability of shamen to heal. This was the first step towards the destruction of Native cultures. The Native Americans had never experienced anything like these deadly diseases before and they came to believe that Europeans had the power to kill or give life.
Resistant strains are no joke, for years my mother has been dealing with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). My mother has had MRSA so bad that at one time she was covered in MRSA sores much like when a person breaks out in hives. Watching her suffer the way she has worries me as I am also a healthcare worker and know what these resistant strains are capable of. I know these strains exist because of a lack of proper patient education. Proper patient education is key to the use of antibiotics and prevention of resistance-bacteria strains.
Watson, Stephanie. Superbugs: the rise of drug-resistant germs. New York, NY: Rosen Pub., 2010. Print.
Antibiotics have been vital tools in the fight against bacterial infections, however their effectiveness has waned in recent times due to the advent of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. According to a review by P, the uses of antibiotics, as well as influences from the environment have allowed such bacterial strains to respond to changes in their environment rapidly, and so develop resistance. This acquired ability can have serious and broad implications in the medical field, evident in a study by O into the resistance of intestinal Staphylococcus aureus.
The human population has a high susceptibility to the contraction of new diseases and outbreaks of these diseases are of high risk. Diseases in recent times that have broken out into the human population are the H7N9 flu strain and SARS. Despite the risk, outbreaks like H7N9 and SARS have been controlled due to epidemiology and other disease control methods. Outbreaks of disease are not uncommon to the human population as they move to new areas around the world with foreign diseases that the native residents would have developed a resistance to.
On the other hand, cells that have resistance from the start or acquire it later may survive. At the same time, when antibiotics attack disease-causing bacteria, they also attack benign bacteria. This process eliminates drug-susceptible bacteria and favors bacteria that are resistant. Two things happen, populations of non-resistant and harmless bacteria are diminished, and because of the reduction of competition from these harmless and/or susceptible bacteria, resistant forms of disease-causing bacteria proliferate. As the resistant forms of the bacteria proliferate, there is more opportunity for genetic or chromosomal mutation (spontaneous DNA mutation (1)) or transformation, that comes about either through a form of microbial sex (1) or through the transference of plasmids, small circles of DNA (1), which allow bacteria to interchange genes with ease.
Throughout history many different diseases have infected the world. Such diseases consist of measles, mumps, malaria, typhus and yellow fever. Many of these diseases are caused by different things and originated in different countries.