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Customized Dengue treatment

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July 12, 2017

What is the issue?

  • There has been an outbreak of Dengue in Kerala and Tamilnadu this year.
  • Indian drug approval processes are ill equipped to deal with new Dengue medicines.

What is dengue?

  • Dengue afflicts close to 400 million people a year.
  • It is spread through the bite of an infected female Aedes Aegyptus mosquito.
  • Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) can lead to lethal complications.
  • DHF in its severe form causes Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS.
  • DSS is associated with very high mortality rate as the blood pressure drops down drastically and organs start to collapse
  • There are no vaccines for the disease.

What are recent inventions in dengue treatment?

  • Australians discovered, when the Aedes mosquito is infected with the Wolbachia bacterium it is unable to carry the dengue virus.
  • If Wolbachia could be made to infect the mosquito population that might offer a cure for dengue.
  • Age old technique of faecal micro biota transplant is founded to treat dengue.
  • Synthetic biology, modifying bacteria to perform specific functions is new support in dengue cure.
  • Recently researches in Mumbai, used biomarkers for treatment of dengue.
  • Lot of new custom made treatment are emerging in dengue treatment.

What are the issues with Indian medicine approval system?

  • India is ill-equipped to regulate new medicines according to the needs.
  • Indian drug approval processes are designed to assess medicines that are intended to be used by vast swathes of the population.
  • Research and development are mooted in a high rate, but the success rate of the quality drugs are less.

Quick facts

Micro biome

  • It is a collective environment of microorganisms
  • It is found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date from plants to animals.
  • A micro biota includes bacteria, fungi and viruses.
  • Micro biota have been found to be crucial for immunologic, hormonal and metabolic homeostasis of their host.

FMT

  • Faecal Micro biota Transplant (FMT) is a procedure in which faecal matter, or stool, is collected from a tested donor.
  • It is mixed with a saline or other solution, strained, and placed in a patient, by endoscopy, or enema etc.
  • The purpose of faecal transplant is to replace good bacteria that has been killed or suppressed, usually by the use of antibiotics, causing bad bacteria, specifically Clostridium difficile.

Biomarkers

  • Biomarkers are indicators that help in determining the presence or severity of a disease.
  • It is used to have a knowledge of the disease progression in different individuals suffering from the disease.

 

Source: Live mint

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