Blog

On the one hand, antibiotics are one of the most powerful tools to save lives. The breakthrough that saved many lives also gets its dark side. Despite the decreasing efficacy in the treatment of patients and the rise of resistance due to the misuse of antibiotics and not of antibiotics themselves, scientists have found a real downside: the impact on the gut microbiota.

 “a growing number of studies are finding that even a short course of antibiotics can alter the makeup of the bacterial species in the gut.” 

A direct link between climate change and infectious diseases can be explained by one notion: the one health concept.

As a reminder, the one health concept is a concept that stand for the interconnection of human – animal and environment health. Dysregulating one aspect can have an impact on others. In this specific case, the three notions of health are interconnected. As a consequence of climate change, scientists predict that wild animals will be forced to relocate their habitats and will most likely be closer to human population or to farmed animals.

A valid animal model of SARS-CoV-2 infection and its complications might shed light on the pathophysiology of the disease and can be used for assessing the efficacy and safety of novel antiviral compounds.

At Vibiosphen, we reproduced a mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection [1] and modified it to better define key post-infection immunological abnormalities. For this purpose, 7-week-old transgenic (K18-hACE2)2Prlmn male mice were intranasally challenged with a lethal dose (200 PFU/mouse) of SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan strain).

In almost 1 / 4 of the sites monitored worldwide, the concentrations of medicine found in rivers exceed  the levels recommended preserving aquatic biodiversity or to prevent antibiotic resistance: that is one of the outcomes of a study performed through the University of York (United Kingdom), in collaboration with 86 studies institutes, including  the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae) in France.

The silent pandemic threat is now well known in the field of infectious disease, but yet still few new antimicrobials are coming on the market. Even if a recent study showed that in 2019, 1,2 Million death was due to resistant bacterial infections and thus more death was attributed to bacterial infection than HIV or Malaria.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often viewed as a concept but not as a reality. Highlighting stories of real-life dramatic patient AMR is essential for sensibilization. 

Nowadays, we face the Covid-19 pandemics but under our radar the silent pandemic is rising. It is common to hear about the outbreaks of flu, malaria, or outbreaks from new Covid-19 variant. It is less common to heard about the outbreaks of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) referred as the silent pandemic.

The one health concept intends to avoid new pandemics by having a systemic point of view of the situation. We can take the concept as a two pillars solution. On the one hand by controlling the exposition of livestock with wildlife to reduce the cross-contamination and on the other hand by controlling the risk of emerging diseases inside the livestock.

The emergence of bacterial pathogens with acquired resistance to almost all available antimicrobials is one of the major concerns today. Resistant pathogens are causing 700,000 deaths per year. It is expected by 2050 that infectious diseases will be responsible for more than 10 million deaths per year, a number higher than the 8.2 million caused by cancer today.

Bacteriocins, also known as antimicrobial peptides, are produced naturally by bacteria. Bacteriocins have antimicrobial activity against bacteria closely related to the producer strain in order to protect their ecological niche.

Drugs have a significant impact on the gut microbiome, but the opposite is also true, gut microbiome has an impact on how the drug fulfills its mission. The onehealth paradigm is once again highlighted as a potential game-changer for treatment efficacy and toxicity elaboration.