Wash Away Dangerous Germs

Nurses wearing gloves sprinkled them with glow-in-the-dark powder and went about their work. In the dark, they could see the powder ended up everywhere, including on their faces, the same way germs spread.

     As the number of world travelers increases, so does the opportunity for diseases to travel from people and hospitals in one country to another. Superbugs with super names, like methlcillin-resistant Straphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), are most dangerous. They resist the antibiotics that usually can cure bacterial infections in wounds, blood, and the gut, for example.

     Using antibiotics to cure a virus, such as coronavirus, known as COVID-19, is actually harmful. Not only are they ineffective against viruses, but they also help build up resistance to the best drugs for fighting bacterial infections.

     Viruses are extremely tiny. They consist of a packet of DNA or RNA messengers within a protein and fatty-like envelope that does not dissolve in water. Some viruses, such as COVID-19, include spikes able to fasten themselves to living human, animal, and plant cells. Although viruses cannot exist outside a living host cell, once their chemical compounds penetrate and infect a cell, they compromise the cell's immune system. Unless an antiviral drug stops them, virus-infected cells can each reproduce a million copies ready to infect more hosts.
 
     It is all too easy for children (and adults) to transfer germs that can remain harmless on skin and around nostrils into their noses and mouths where they cause disease. Prevention can be relatively easy, if hand sanitizers are accessible in handy locations. Children who are around animals especially need to wash their hands, and even doctors need to be reminded of the need to wash their hands between routine patient contacts.

     Earlier posts stress the importance of reducing resistance to antibiotics by using these drugs sparingly. See "Global Search for New Antibiotics" and "Diseases and Cures Travel the Globe."