- Tech bros buying $150K red-light therapy beds, $70K hyperbaric chambers Business Insider
- Tech Leaders Spend How Much(?!) on Their Bodies? The Information
- Tech execs are buying $150,000 red-light therapy beds and $70,000 hyperbaric chambers for their wellness quests Yahoo Finance
- Tech execs are buying $150,000 red-light therapy beds and $70,000 hyperbaric chambers for their wellness quest Business Insider India
- The Brain-Body Investment Survey: What 500 Subscribers Are Spending to Boost Their Performance The Information
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: beds
Most young people aren’t getting latest Covid-19 booster, but they’re not filling hospital beds at three large health care systems – CNN
- Most young people aren’t getting latest Covid-19 booster, but they’re not filling hospital beds at three large health care systems CNN
- Kansas’ bivalent COVID booster rate is just 15.8%. These counties have lowest uptake Wichita Eagle
- Only 28% of eligible Peterborough residents have received COVID-19 booster in last six months: health unit The Peterborough Examiner
- Opinion | Should Future COVID Boosters Include the Ancestral Strain? Medpage Today
- Local doctor shares what an annual COVID vaccine could mean for Americans KOLO
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Beds run out at Beijing hospital as COVID-19 spreads
BEIJING (AP) — Patients, mostly older people, laid on stretchers in hallways or took oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as a COVID-19 outbreak stretched public health facilities’ resources in China’s capital Beijing, even after its reported peak.
The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city’s east was packed Thursday with newly arrived patients. Beds ran out by midmorning, even as ambulances continued to bring more people in. Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.
The crush of people seeking hospital care follows China abandonment of its most severe pandemic restrictions last month after nearly three years of lockdowns, travels bans and school closures that weighed heavily on the economy and prompted unusual street protests in a country that quashes political dissent.
The outbreak appears to have spread the fastest in densely populated cities first. Now, authorities are concerned as it reaches smaller towns and rural areas with weaker health care systems. Several local governments began asking people Thursday not to make the trip home for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, signaling lingering worry around opening up.
Overseas, a growing number of governments are requiring virus tests for travelers from China, saying they are needed because the Chinese government is not sharing enough information on the outbreak. The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its member states to impose pre-departure COVID-19 testing, though not all have done so.
Italy — the first place in Europe where the pandemic exacted a heavy toll in early 2020 — became the first EU member to require tests for passengers from China last week, and France and Spain followed with their own measures. That followed the imposition by the U.S. of a requirement for a negative test result within 48 hours of departure.
China has criticized the requirements and warned of countermeasures against countries imposing them.
World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday he was concerned about the lack of outbreak data from the Chinese government.
At a daily briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing has consistently “shared information and data with the international community in an open and transparent manner.”
“At present, China’s COVID-19 situation is under control,” Mao said. “Also, we hope that the WHO secretariat will take a science-based, objective and impartial position to play a positive role in addressing the pandemic globally.”
Local government appeals to avoid travel during the Lunar New Year holiday comes days before the formal lifting of many remaining restrictions — some already not being enforced — on Sunday.
“We recommend that everyone not return to their hometowns unless necessary during the peak of the outbreak,” the government of Shaoyang county in Hunan province in central China said in a notice dated Thursday. “Avoid visiting relatives and traveling between regions. Minimize travel.”
Similar appeals were issued by Shouxian county in Anhui province southeast of Beijing and the cities of Qingyang in Gansu province in the northwest and Weifang in Shandong on the east coast.
The appeals, which harkened back to the last few years of strict pandemic restrictions, showed that some officials remain nervous about lifting them too quickly.
The Weifang government notice said residents should celebrate the holiday with video and phone gatherings.
“Avoid visiting relatives and friends to protect yourself and others,” it said.
Despite such concerns, Hong Kong announced it will reopen some of its border crossings with mainland China on Sunday and allow tens of thousands of people to cross every day without being quarantined.
The city’s land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years and the reopening is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong’s tourism and retail sectors.
___
Associated Press reporters Joe McDonald in Beijing and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
China races to install hospital beds as COVID surge sparks concern abroad
BEIJING/WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics on Tuesday as the United States said Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free was a concern for the world.
China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-COVID” regime of mass lockdowns after protests against curbs that had largely kept the virus at bay for three years but at significant costs to society and the world’s second-largest economy.
Now, as the virus sweeps through a country of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity having been shielded for so long, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.
“We know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday, adding that the virus outbreak in China was also a concern for global growth.
Beijing reported five COVID-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported just 5,242 COVID deaths since the pandemic emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards.
But there are rising doubts that the statistics are capturing the full impact of a disease ripping through cities after China dropped curbs including most mandatory testing on Dec. 7.
Since then, some hospitals have become inundated, pharmacies emptied of medicines, while many people have gone into self-imposed lockdowns, straining delivery services.
“It’s a bit of a burden to suddenly reopen when the supply of medications was not sufficiently prepared,” said Zhang, a 31-year-old delivery worker in Beijing who declined to give his full name. “But I support the reopening.”
Some health experts estimate 60% of people in China – equivalent to 10% of the world’s population – could be infected over coming months, and that more than 2 million could die.
In the capital, Beijing, security guards patrolled the entrance of a designated COVID-19 crematorium where Reuters journalists on Saturday saw a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside. Reuters could not establish if the deaths were due to COVID.
‘GETTING SICK’
In Beijing, which has emerged as the main infection hot spot, commuters, many coughing into their masks, were back on the trains to work and streets were coming back to life after being largely deserted last week.
Streets in Shanghai, where COVID transmission rates are catching up with Beijing’s, were emptier, and subway trains were only half-full.
“People are staying away because they are sick or they are scared of getting sick, but mostly now, I think it’s because they are actually sick,” said Yang, a trainer at a nearly empty Shanghai gym.
Top health officials have softened their tone on the threat posed by the disease in recent weeks, a U-turn from previous messaging that the virus had to be eradicated to save lives even as the rest of the world opened up.
They have also been playing down the possibility that the now predominant Omicron strain could become more virulent.
“The probability of a sudden large mutation … is very low,” Zhang Wenhong, a prominent infectious disease specialist, told a forum on Sunday in comments reported by state media.
Nevertheless, there are mounting signs the virus is buffeting China’s fragile health system.
Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and other facilities for severe COVID cases, the state-run Global Times reported on Monday.
Authorities have also been racing to build so-called fever clinics, facilities where medical staff check patients’ symptoms and administer medication. Often attached to hospitals, the clinics are common in mainland China and are designed to prevent the wider spread of contagious disease in hospitals.
In the past week, major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Wenzhou announced they had added hundreds of fever clinics, some in converted sports facilities.
The virus is also hammering China’s economy, expected to grow 3% this year, its worst performance in nearly half a century. Workers and truck drivers falling ill are slowing down output and disrupting logistics, economists say.
A World Economics survey showed on Monday China’s business confidence fell in December to its lowest since January 2013.
Weaker industrial activity in the world’s top oil importer has capped gains for crude prices and driven copper lower.
China kept benchmark lending interest rates unchanged for the fourth consecutive month on Tuesday.
Reporting by Bernard Orr and Xiaoyu Yin in Beijing, David Stanway in Shanghai and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Writing by John Geddie and Marius Zaharia; Editing by Robert Birsel
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
RSV symptoms, treatment: As respiratory virus cases and hospitalizations surge, only 6% of pediatric ICU beds are open in Illinois
CHICAGO (WLS) — Local doctors are raising the alarm about preventing the spread of RSV, a respiratory illness in children, that is causing a large number of hospitalizations.
Currently, RSV — along with other viruses — means most of the pediatric intensive care unit bed in our state are full.
In Illinois, there are 289 so-called PICU, or pediatric ICU, beds. Ninety-four percent of them are full. Half of them are in Chicago.
WATCH | When to take your child with RSV to the ER
Rush University Medical Center shared some video of what they are seeing as therapists and nurses help a surge of pediatric patients hospitalized with RSV and other viruses. Protocols are in place as the medical staff there treat kids now.
“We are seeing a huge influx of these kids coming to the hospitals and it’s unseasonably early,” said Anne Geistkemper, a neonatal pediatric respiratory therapy manager at Rush.
‘Tripledemic’ of flu, RSV, COVID could result in ‘explosion’ of sick patients, Chicago doctors warn
Geistkemper said they have tripled their respiratory support therapies since September and suggests parents call their pediatrician if a child is struggling to breathe.
“You might see them tugging a bit more at their neck, maybe breathing a little harder with their belly, even breathing in so hard that you can kind of see some ribs,” Geistkemper said.
WATCH | How is RSV treated?
Pediatric hospitals in our area have more capacity. But our ABC7 Data Team analyzed federal data and found an increase in pediatric beds in use from October 14-20 at some facilities in our area.
Advocate Children’s Hospital compares surge in RSV cases to ‘March 2020’
For example, UChicago Medicine Comer saw an 8% increase from a month ago in daily average bed occupancy. Rush saw an 11% increase, and Lurie was unchanged from a month ago.
“Because they are breathing so hard and getting sick, it’s hard for them to eat or drink which can lead to dehydration which can also lead to an emergency room visit or hospital setting,” said Dr. Sameer Vohra, the director of Illinois’ Dept. of Public Health, and also a pediatrician and father.
“Halloween, birthday parties… be careful, get your vaccine and stay home if you’re sick,” Dr. Vohra said.
Dr. Vohra urges preventive measures as pediatric ICU beds are currently limited in the state, with only 6% available now.
Copyright © 2022 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.
Over 70% of pediatric hospital beds in US full amid surge of respiratory illnesses
As the surge in children’s respiratory illnesses, including rhinovirus and enterovirus, continues across the country, one children’s hospital is considering installing a field tent to deal with the influx of patients.
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford confirmed to ABC News it is considering working with the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Association as it explores the possibility of setting up a tent on the hospital’s lawn.
The hospital currently has more than one dozen pediatric patients who are waiting for beds.
“We’re thinking of other alternatives as well as adding space, such as a mobile hospital out here on the front lawn,” Dr. John Brancanto, division head of emergency medicine at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, told ABC News’ Erielle Reshef. “We are seeing a very high number of patients and very high acuity.”
Another hospital in the state, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, said overall RSV cases seen in the emergency department jumped from 57 last week to 106 currently.
While the hospital currently has one to three children admitted with COVID-19, there are 30 admitted with RSV, according to Dr. Thomas Murray, associate medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.
“I think the biggest concern from my perspective is the uncertainty of when the RSV surge will peak and what will happen with influenza as it has started to circulate in the area,” Murray told ABC News. “Increasing numbers of influenza along with high RSV numbers will require us to further expand our strategies to care for the children that need it.”
RSV — or respiratory syncytial virus — can cause mild, cold-like symptoms, and in severe cases, can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Most people recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious, especially for infants and older adults,” the CDC says.
Google Maps Street View
Enteroviruses can also cause respiratory illness ranging from mild — like a common cold — to severe, according to the CDC. In rare instances, severe cases can cause illnesses like viral meningitis (infection of the covering of spinal cord and brain) or acute flaccid myelitis, a neurologic condition that can cause muscle weakness and paralysis.
Hospitals in more than two dozen states — including Rhode Island, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, New Jersey and Massachusetts — and the District of Columbia have told ABC News they are feeling the crush of a higher-than-expected rate of certain pediatric infections other than COVID-19.
Nationally, pediatric bed capacity is the highest it has been in two years, with 71% of the estimated 40,000 beds filled, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Michael Koster, director of pediatric infectious diseases at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, said that “from mid-September to mid-October,” the number of patients with RSV infections coming into the hospital had “doubled.”
“These patients aren’t just from Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts — we are seeing patients are coming from over 100 miles away, because their local pediatric hospital is full or has closed,” Koster added.
In an advisory last month to pediatricians and hospitals, shared with ABC News, the New Jersey Department of Health warned of increasing levels of enterovirus and rhinovirus activity, and noted the state was seeing a similar “surge” like other parts of the country.
A spokesperson for the department told ABC News at the time they were “monitoring and watching hospitalizations and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit census daily throughout the state,” adding that officials had planned a call with hospitals “to assess pediatric capacity” amid the surge.
Health experts say they expect things to worsen as the school year proceeds and winter approaches.
“When I talk to children’s hospitals in Illinois and across the country, very much universally, they’re telling me they’re seeing an uptick in pediatric admissions through the emergency department as well as children sick enough to require the pediatric intensive care unit,” Dana Evans, respiratory therapist and board member of the American Association for Respiratory Care, told ABC News. “Most of them are telling me that what they’re seeing is rhinovirus and enterovirus. Some of them are seeing enterovirus D68.”
Blanscape/Shutterstock
Evans said it’s typical for these viruses to make their way back in the fall, while noting there have been changes in the typical patterns since the coronavirus pandemic.
“Last year, RSV hit unseasonably early in August, and this year it’s September,” said Evans. “We didn’t see it in 2020 — likely due to all of the COVID mitigation strategies and the masking and everything we were doing to prevent the spread of COVID which also prevents the spread of other respiratory viruses — but here we are in 2022, and we’re back at it.”
According to Evans, the cause of the surge is likely a combination of factors, including the fact that some children may not have been previously exposed due to COVID-related hygiene practices and that this could be a “particularly virulent” strain of the virus.
Children with chronic lung disease, premature babies and kids with asthma are considered especially high risk.
Evans said children and families should continue to practice good hygiene like hand washing and staying home when sick to help prevent viral spread.
“Anyone that’s exhibiting respiratory viral symptoms really should stay home, be it staying home from school or staying home from work, so they don’t spread the virus to their friends or to your colleagues,” said Evans. “That slowing the spread is important, so it reduces the prevalence of it in our communities, but also protects others from becoming sick as well.”
Parents and guardians should seek medical help if a child is having trouble breathing, wheezing or becoming blue or discolored in their face, according to Evans.
“Either coming to the emergency department or reaching out to your physician for recommendations of next steps at that point would be really important,” she said.
What is RSV? Respiratory syncytial virus cases in babies, toddlers filling up pediatric hospital beds in Chicago, doctors warn
CHICAGO (WLS) — Alissa Werner has been spending the last couple days at Rush University Medical Center with her youngest child.
Three-year-old Ryih is in the intensive care unit being treated for respiratory syncytial virus, commonly known as RSV.
“We knew it was viral, so antibiotics were not going to help,” Alissa Werner said. “So just supportive care, get her on oxygen and keep her comfortable.”
Ryih is one of many kids diagnosed with RSV filling up pediatric hospital beds in Chicago. Doctors say the virus is the most common reason for kids under 2 to be hospitalized
“We are very busy with RSV,” said Dr. Laura Meltzer, a pediatric hospitalist at Rush University Medical Center. “It’s an unusually early time in the season to see so many children sick.”
RSV is most common in the winter months, but usual patterns have been thrown off by COVID. Hospitals are also seeing slightly older kids, rather than just babies.
“The kids that would have been affected early in life, now might not have been affected until a few years older because they were wearing a mask or not going to daycare when they were young,” explained Dr. Taylor Heald-Sargent, an infectious disease specialist at Lurie Children’s Hospital.
RSV symptoms are similar to the common cold. The majority of kids recover at home, but trouble breathing and high fevers are what brings children to the hospital. Unfortunately, there is no treatment for RSV.
“It’s so frustrating knowing there isn’t any treatment that we can give to make it get better,” Meltzer said, “but that support is critical: a mix of both hydration, respiratory support, suctioning and medication to control fevers.”
But, most kids do get better, and Ryih Werner is on the mend.
“Her fever is gone, we think we are past the worst of it, weaning her off oxygen and getting back to normal self,” her mom said.
While there is not a cure for RSV, vaccines are being tested in clinical trials, but that is still a long way off.
Copyright © 2022 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.
Is anyone buying couches and beds from Wayfair anymore?
Shoppers dished out for new sofas, beds and decor, remodeled their kitchens and backyards and invested in their remote work setup. Demand was so hot that it broke global supply chains and caused lengthy delays for goods.
It all meant boom times for online retailer Wayfair (W) and companies such as Williams-Sonoma (WSM), RH (RH), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), Overstock (OSTBP) and other furniture and homegoods’ chains. Wayfair’s stock leaped 140% in 2020.
Fast forward two years. The picture looks a lot different now.
Inflation has tapped out lower and middle-income shoppers, who have pulled back their discretionary purchases to focus on paying for necessities like groceries, gas and rent. Wealthier customers have shifted their spending from furniture and other goods to travel and services. Mortgage rates are up, cutting into demand for new homes.
That’s pressuring Wayfair and other chains that saw a sales spike earlier in the pandemic.
Wayfair said Thursday that its sales declined 15% during its latest quarter ending June 30 compared with the same period last year; it also lost 24% of its active customers — sign that the company is struggling to retain the shoppers it gained at the beginning of the pandemic. Wayfair posted a net loss of $378 million during the quarter.
“Customers are being more deliberate about where their discretionary dollars are going as prices at the gas station and grocery store eat up a greater share of [their] wallet,” Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah said on a call with analysts Thursday.
“We have also seen many of those discretionary dollars flow away from goods to services, especially travel,” he added.
Shah said customers have been trading down to cheaper options and Wayfair has been increasing promotions to spur demand.
Wayfair’s stock has plunged more than 60% this year, while RH shares have lost 45% and Bed Bath & Beyond is down 57%. Williams-Sonoma, which also includes West Elm and Pottery Barn, has dropped 13%.
SIDS Is Still a Tragic Mystery, Despite Claims the ‘Cause’ Has Been Found
Last week, numerous headlines and social media posts declared that scientists had finally found the “cause” of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Unfortunately, the reality is a bit more complicated. While the research could one day lead to important discoveries in predicting or treating this devastating syndrome, the findings aren’t as game-changing as they were originally portrayed—at least not yet.
The study was published earlier this month in the journal eBioMedicine. Researchers in Australia compared infants believed to have died of SIDS to control groups of living infants and infants who died of other causes, using blood samples taken from newborns as part of a screening program. SIDS is characterized by the unexplained death of a child younger than one, often while sleeping. The team looked at total levels of protein along with an enzyme called butyrylcholinesterase (BChE).
Among other things, BChE plays a role in regulating the autonomic nervous system, the nerves that unconsciously manage many bodily functions, including breathing and heart rate. Many researchers, these authors included, theorize that a dysfunction in the autonomic system could be an underlying cause of SIDS. If so, they further speculate, then lower-than-normal levels of BChE could be a sign—or even a possible trigger—of this dysfunction. And sure enough, the team found that children who died of SIDS had noticeably lower levels of BChE soon after birth than controls.
The first media headlines on the study heralded it as having pinpointed the “reason why infants die from SIDS.” Soon, Twitter users were describing the study as having found the true cause of SIDS. But while this discovery is important, its findings have been overhyped and mischaracterized, according to Jonathan Marron, a bioethicist at Harvard Medical School. Marron is not an expert in SIDS specifically, but he is also a clinical pediatrician and researcher.
“Science progresses incrementally. This study is an interesting and promising development for a devastating and poorly understood entity, SIDS. It is not, however, a magic bullet, nor can we say today that we are sure that we have found the cure for SIDS,” Marron told Gizmodo in an email.
G/O Media may get a commission
Save $70
Apple AirPods Max
Experience Next-Level Sound
Spatial audio with dynamic head tracking provides theater-like sound that surrounds you
Every study comes with its limitations, and this one is no exception. For one, the sample size is very small, with only 26 infants who died from SIDS included in the study. SIDS is thankfully a rare condition, so the numbers are understandable, but it does mean that any findings should be viewed with added caution until they’re validated with further research. The study also only found an association between BChE levels and SIDS, not an established cause-and-effect relationship. Low BChE may very well be a signal or driving trigger of SIDS risk, but this research alone can’t tell us that. And even if this connection is every bit as crucial as we hope, it would still take years to take advantage of it, such as by finding a safe treatment that could increase BChE levels or otherwise prevent SIDS.
Marron notes that the authors of the study, while understandably excited about their work, were more cautious about the implications of their research than the early headlines and subsequent social media chatter surrounding it.
“I’m not sure of the cause for this—it could be an example of those writing the media reports not understanding the work and its limitations, but it might also be a representation of the fact that sensational stories and sensational headlines drive clicks,” Marron said. Later articles have since been more open-eyed about the study’s caveats, and at least one early article has since been updated as well.
It probably wasn’t just sensationalism or poor science literacy that drove the early coverage of this research, though. SIDS has historically involved plenty of stigmatization, with parents—particularly mothers—often being blamed for the deaths of their children. Other times, life-saving interventions like childhood vaccines have been scapegoated by antivaxxers and a supportive or gullible media. In many of the tweets discussing the research, there was a common theme among readers hoping that this stigmatization would finally die down, since the “true cause” turned out to be something completely out of anyone’s control.
“We are uncomfortable with uncertainty—maybe even more so when it comes to something so significant and heart-wrenching as a child’s death. Finding a single cause, a single answer, for this is then appealing,” Marron said. “It’s understandable that people would be thrilled to learn that scientists had found the cause for SIDS.”
Another compelling part of the narrative is that the study’s lead author, Carmel Harrington, lost her own infant to SIDS. And it was this tragic loss that motivated her research focus. (Gizmodo has reached out to Harrington for comment, but has not heard back as of yet.)
Harrington and her team’s work could still be as monumental as the early headlines proclaimed it to be, some day. Even if we do find a clear cause of SIDS, though, it wouldn’t necessarily change the advice that new parents routinely get on how to lower the risk of SIDS for their children. Importantly, research has shown that safe sleeping practices, such as keeping infants on their backs and avoiding overheating, can reduce the risk of SIDS. And following public health campaigns that emphasized these practices and other tips starting in the 1990s, annual rates of SIDS in the U.S. and elsewhere have continued to fall over time.
Of course, this is hardly the first piece of science to be overhyped by journalists or misunderstood by readers. While no one is ever fully immune to bias, this episode should remind people to keep a skeptical eye on splashy science news headlines and to make sure they’re getting the larger context of the research in question. Journalists should always be careful about what they’re putting out into the world, Marron notes.
“I hope that journalists will recognize the responsibility they have and the influence they can have on the public,” he said.
People are getting sick from drug-resistant mold found in their flower beds and compost bins, scientists say
-
Scientists have confirmed a link between drug-resistant fungi in the environment and in human lungs.
-
Environmental mold can cause lung infections in people with vulnerable immune systems.
-
Some molds have evolved drug resistance from agricultural exposures, making fungal infections more difficult to treat.
Researchers at Imperial College London have confirmed that drug-resistant mold infections originating from gardens, homes, and farms are causing persistent, life-threatening illness in humans.
Molds like Aspergillus fumigatus are ubiquitous around the world, so the average person’s immune system is skilled at recognizing and clearing inhaled mold spores.
However, drug-resistant mold strains are on the rise worldwide, and the Imperial study, published Monday in the journal Nature Epidemiology, identifies a likely driving factor: exposure to agricultural fungicides.
While a hefty dose of fungicide will kill a mold like Aspergillus, gradual exposure in the environment can lead the way to drug resistance, Johanna Rhodes, a genomic epidemiology fellow at Imperial, told Insider.
“It’s kind of like building up a tan gradually,” Rhodes, the study’s lead author, said. “If it’s exposed a little bit at a time, it will develop the resistance slowly.”
The study is one of the first to confirm that people can catch drug-resistant fungal infections from their everyday environments.
To interrogate the connection, Rhodes and her team collected and analyzed more than 100 Aspergillus samples from infected patients across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland between 2005 and 2017. They also sequenced mold samples from those patients’ environments and compared them for matches.
For some patients, samples of Aspergillus taken from the lungs were nearly identical to spores found in nearby soil or other environmental sources, picked based on hospital location. In six separate cases, drug-resistant aspergillosis infections could be traced back to the patient’s environment with high confidence.
Fungi are evolving drug resistance
Researchers like Rhodes are especially interested in tracking drug-resistant mold strains, which are on the rise worldwide.
Infections with normal Aspergillus sicken 10-20 million people around the world, according to estimates cited in the study. The infection is typically treated with a class of antifungal drugs called azoles, but emerging drug resistance is a growing threat.
Almost half of the samples collected in the UK-based study were resistant to at least one first-line antifungal drug, and more than 10% of samples (including three from patients) had evolved resistance to two or more azole drugs.
Although drug resistance can emerge during treatment in hospital settings, the authors concluded that the fungi in question developed resistance before it infiltrated any human lungs, and that pointed them to agricultural fungicides.
Antifungal resistance can be deadly for patients with compromised immune systems, whether they’re on immunosuppressant medications or managing an autoimmune condition. Studies have found a 25% increase in mortality three months into infection with drug-resistant Aspergillus compared to those with typical, treatable fungal infections.
How to avoid mold inhalation in your home and in your garden
Like many fungi, Aspergillus thrives in decaying environments. Soil beds, compost bins, and decaying wood are plenty hospitable for fungal growth, and mold spores can become airborne and spread to new environments.
Drug-resistant Aspergillus is virtually everywhere, Rhodes said, because spores can move through the air and transfer genetic material to wild Aspergillus colonies that have never encountered azoles.
As the risk of exposure is so widespread, the authors are calling for improved surveillance of drug-resistant strains of fungus.
While the average person can’t sequence mold spores from their backyard, Rhodes recommended leaving windows open to prevent a buildup of Aspergillus in the home, as well as to clear out other pathogens like the coronavirus. N95 face masks acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic can also work for avoiding spore inhalation while gardening or handling compost.
Read the original article on Insider