Despite the progress in medical science, many old and new diseases seem to dodge us. Microbes which we bade farewell to, are raising their ugly heads again by hiding, mutating and then resurfacing
A MAN in Connecticut died recently of a
newly identified tick-borne disease
called human granulocytic erlichiosis,,
caused by a hitherto unknown bacte
rium. A student in New York contracted
a serious case of hanta infection, caused
by a rare virus carried by r9dents. There
was a fresh outbreak ofthe deadly Ebola
virus in a city with a population of
6,00,000 in Zaire.
The plague resurfaced in India in,
1994 and shocked the world which had
been sleeping easy, thinking the disease
had been eradicated., Humankind is
today besieged by lyme disease, toxic
shock syndrome, legionnaire's disease
and the chilling flesh-eating bacteria.
Scientists in the us now warn that
humankind's best efforts to eradicate
deadly diseases through vaccinations,
antibiotics, sanitation and chemicals
may be failing because viruses and bacteria - known and unknown - are
mutating and developing resistance to
antibiotics. Worse still, all these dangerous microbes have nature on their side.
"Our anti-microbial drugs have
become less effective against many
infectious agents andexperts in infectious diseases are concerned about the
possibility of a 'post-antibiotic' era warns David Satcher, director, Center
for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), Atlanta, usA. "At the same time,
our ability to detect, contain and prevent emerging infectious diseases is in
jeopardy," he adds.
These microbes are enormously
creative and evolutionary. Normally,
benign microbes either find new hosts
or swap genes to attain new virulence.
Or *else; they simply mutate to avoid
eradication by a drug designed to target
their old incarnations.
"The life ambition of a bacterium is
to become bacteria - plural," explains
microbiologist Barry Bloom of the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in
New York City. Bloom says that the
enormous ability of microbes to stay in hiding and resurface after mutation makes it difficult for scientists to predict outbreaks clearly. Thanks to interna- tional surveillance, a new threat call occasionally be foreseen and defences readied. But not always. The Asian tiger mosquito, which traveled to the us from the Far East in 1985, spread rapidly in the hospitable, warm conditions of southern USA. Only years later did researchers identify it not only as the vector for deadly diseases such as dengue and yellow fever, but also observed that they fed on different kinds of animals including cows, horses, rats, birds and, of course, humans.
It may be difficult or impossible'to
avoid lapses su~h as the importation of a ~
dangerous mosquito, but many other public health missteps are preventable. Whooping cough recently erupted in in the UK after many parents, concerned about rare complications from the per- tussis vaccine, left their children unpro- tected. There are many other such examples.
The current state of affairs can also be attributed to 50-odd years of wide- spread- but the often inappropri~te
-use of antibiotics. When drug treat- ment is not aggressive enough or does not continue for the appropriate length of time, it kills only susceptible bacteria, leaving behind the stouter ones to mutate and resurface later.
CDC chief Levin also looks at disease from a broader perspective. "We believe that among the 'enabling factors' are changes in human demography and behaviour," he says. Levin attributes the resl,lrgence OfTB in New York City to crowded conditions' in prisons and in centres for the homeless.
"Malaria became a human disease only after the development of agricul- ture. Before that, there were not ~nough people to sustain it. You need a few hundred thousand people to sustain measles. We do not know that other diseases may require several million people. Giant cities are growing in developing nations now," Levin anguishes: He declares, "Our science is not adequate to combat the new dis- eases. Health and hygiene awareness is the best answer to the problem".
"We know we will never conquer infectious diseases," says Satcher . "The question is whether we can control these organisms, SQ that we can co-exist."
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