#gram-negative-bacteria

#gram-negative-bacteria

Antibiotics are essential for modern medicine, but bacteria are evolving and developing resistance, turning routine infections into life-threatening conditions. A global analysis estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections could cause over 39 million deaths by 2050.

In children below the age of five, whose immune systems are still developing, the infections can lead to malnourishment; they cause up to 42,000 deaths annually. Soon there may be a vaccine to protect against these infections. In the Lancet Infectious Diseases last month, scientists shared the results of the first study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an ETEC-controlling vaccine in a large pediatric population in Gambia.

After 32 weeks in hospital, several cardiac arrests and a quadruple amputation, sepsis survivor Manjit Sangha has finally returned home. Despite medics thinking the 56-year-old would almost certainly die, she left Ward 9 at Moseley Hall in Birmingham on Wednesday, receiving a hero's welcome from her family in Penn, on the Wolverhampton/Staffordshire border. Doctors believe her sepsis might have been caused by something as innocent as a lick from her dog on a small cut or scratch.

E. coli - you don't want it. You really, really don't. Properly known as Escherichia coli, E. coli are bacteria found in the intestines of humans and animals. While many of them are harmless, some kinds can cause severe gastrointestinal illness, with the most dangerous pathogenic types - such as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) - potentially leading to kidney failure and death, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems.