We live surrounded by bacteria. Many are inside us And nothing happens, although there is others that are more treacherous. Above all, there are superbacteria. They are the ones who have Developed resistance to antibiotics And they are extremely difficult to eradicate. The World Health Organization itself has cataloged them as one of the greatest health threats, but there is something that can help us end them.
Make peanut on the plane.
AMR. They are the acronym in English of “Antimicrobial resistance”, Something that was found when antibiotics began more common in the 50s and that has accelerated in recent years. Excessive use And sometimes, inadequate of these medicationsas well as The sale without recipehas made bacteria rise level and be more resistant.
And the worst part is that they are not located, but that they travel all over the world due to the trade of animals, food and the trips we can do by plane. Air pollution also helps transport resistant bacteria.
Impact. The most common pathogens are Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter Baumannii or multirresistant tuberculosis, and it is estimated that they currently produce more than one million direct deaths every year. For A population of more than 8,000 million peopleit may not seem too much, but already You talk of about 39 million direct annual deaths for 2050 due to these superbacteria.
They put transplants at risk, they are a threat to food security, make treatments difficult and hospital stays increase. And, in addition to direct deaths, It is expected An increase in health costs of about 160,000 million dollars annually.
The analysis. We have commented that traveling by plane makes it easier for these resistant microorganisms to move from place, being able to contaminate totally new groups. It is something we have seen with Pandemics like Covid-19and that migration of superbacteria by plane has been the protagonist in a study Prepared by the National Science Agency of Australia, in collaboration with the University of Xiamen, the University of Australia del Sur and the Technological University of Michigan.
Specifically, they analyzed wastewater from the bathrooms of 44 international flights that arrived in Australia from nine countries:
- 18 came from India.
- 14 of the United Kingdom.
- Six from Germany.
- The rest were a flight from: France, United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, South Africa, Japan and Indonesia.
Aircraft excrement extraction system
Differences. The researchers detected nine priority and superbacteria pathogens, some of them resistant to multiple drugs. Of the nine, five were in the fecal waters of the 44 flights, while a gene that confers resistance to last resort antibiotics was detected in 17 flight. This is the most resistant to the most powerful antibiotic treatments.
Nicholas Ashbolt, a microbiologist at the University of Australia del Sur, commented that “flights from Asia, in particular from India, showed higher concentrations of genes of genes from Antibiotic resistance Compared to flights from Europe and the United Kingdom. ”Yawen Liu, a researcher at the University of Xianmen, ensures that these differences can reflect variations in the use of antibiotics, water health, population density and public health policies of each region.
Peanut. Now, why is it so important to urinate or defecate on a plane to fight the superbacteria? Warish Ahmed, the main scientist of the University of Australia, comments that “the wastewater of the aircraft captures microbial signatures of passengers from different continents, offering a non -invasive and profitable form of monitoring threats such as AMR’s.”
In addition, in the study they have not limited themselves to measuring the presence of superbacteria in the wastewater of the airplanes, but to find out If the disinfectants used in the bathrooms affect AMR. The results showed that nucleic acids remained stable up to 24 hours, even in the presence of strong disinfectants. This points to the importance of analysis of the depositions in the aircraft for surveillance purposes.
Critical. “Wastewater monitoring of aircraft could complement existing public health systems, providing early alerts on the emerging threat of superbacteria,” says Ashbolt, and the study concludes by pointing out that this mere proof of concept has great potential in the real world to convert the bathrooms of the aircraft into an early warning system that allows to better manage the better public health.
I recognize that I have made a multitude of flights and, whenever I have been able, I have avoided using the toilet of the plane because it seems uncomfortable. But, if I have no choice, in my next flight I will lite my blanket and I will do my things thinking that I am doing a favor to science.
Images | Cambridgebayweather, Wright
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