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Londra Gazete, 14 April 2022 LondraGazete.com/English 9

New drugs to fight superbugs

available on NHS soon

TWO new medications which
fight drug-resistant superbugs
could soon become available to
NHS patients in England.
Drugs' watchdog NICE says ce-
fiderocol and ceftazidime with
avibactam offer value for money
and will save lives.
These 'last line of defence' dru-
gs will tackle severe infections
which cannot be cleared by other
Ongoing Listeria outbreak treatments.

Under the deal, a fixed annual
linked to smoked fish fee will be paid to manufacturers
to cover their development costs,
after rise in cases rather than individual payments
for each dose.
The subscription-style payment
AN ongoing Listeria outbreak in including one in a pregnant wom- model is part of the government's pre-antibiotic era. ea - have acquired the ability to
the UK has been linked to smoked an, public health authorities said strategy to incentivise companies Without effective drugs to add- dodge medicines. Hard-to-treat
fish, public health authorities have on Monday. The same number of to make essential drugs such as ress superbugs, routine surgery infections already kill more than
said. infections was recorded in 2020 and these, alongside the so-called blo- such as hip replacements will be- a million people per year globally,
There has been an surge in cases 2021 combined, according to the ckbuster drugs which typically come too dangerous to perform, researchers estimate.
of listeriosis an illness caused by the UK Health Security Agency, Public make huge profits for pharma- for example. The two new drugs, approved in
bacterium since the start of the year, Health England and Public Health ceutical giants. Some of the bacteria and other draft guidelines from NICE, will
according to officials. Scotland said. Antimicrobial resistance is a micro-organisms behind com- help patients with risky urinary
While infection is likely to go un- Advice will be updated to include major issue which threatens to mon, treatable diseases - inclu- tract infections, pneumonia and
noticed or cause short-term flu-like this food in a list of high-risk prod- set modern medicine back to the ding tuberculosis and gonorrho- sepsis.
symptoms such as vomiting and ucts that those vulnerable to Listeria
diarrhoea in healthy adults, it can infection should thoroughly cook
be dangerous to pregnant women, before eating. Tina Potter, the head `
those over 65 years old or with weak- of incidents at the Food Standards
ened immune systems. Agency, said public health bodies ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Fight Depression
Vulnerable groups are being ad- were reminding people vulnerable
vised to ensure smoked fish is thor- to Listeria infection “of the risks in Better Than Normal Medication,
oughly cooked before eating it to de- consuming smoked fish and asking
stroy the Listeria bacterium in light them to make sure that the smoked
of the current outbreak. fish is always thoroughly cooked in- Study Suggests
Six cases of listeriosis have been cluding when served as part of a dish
detected in the past three months, before they eat it”. A team of researchers at Impe-
rial College London’s Centre for
Psychedelic Research published a
Study: Mobile phone users do not paper in the journal Nature Me-

have increased risk of brain tumours dicine on Monday concerning a
study where patients with dep-
THE use of mobile phones does vestigated this potential connection ression were given a synthesized
not increase the risk of brain tu- have been retrospective in nature, form of psilocybin. The treatment
mours, new large-scale research has whereby individuals report mobile resulted in increased neuroplasti-
shown. phone use after a diagnosis of can- city, or the way neurons establish
In a study of more than 776,000 cer, meaning that the results may be new connections in the brain. This
women, there was no elevated risk biased. process can help fight depression
of developing tumours in those who Now, scientists from Oxford Pop- as it can help keep your brain from
had used mobile phones every day ulation Health and International creating cycling, negative thou-
over two decades. Agency for Research on Cancer have ghts. The patients who took the
Longstanding fears around the im- shown in their large-scale study that psychedelic also had increased sel- sants—making the brain more group of participants received the
pact of mobile phones on the brain there is no increased risk of brain tu- f-reported improvements in their flexible and fluid, and less entren- psilocybin compound and an SSRI
have been reignited following the mours in mobile phone users, com- mental health. ched in the negative thinking pat- control, while another received
launch of 5G wireless technologies. pared to those who have never used Interestingly, the study also see- terns associated with depression,” the SSRI with a psilocybin control.
Most of the studies that have in- one. med to suggest that the psilocybin David Nutt, head of Imperial and They said patterns of brain acti-
compound resulted in more brain co-author of the study, said in a vity in depression can become ri-
connectivity than with patients press release. gid and restricted, and psilocybin
who received only escitalopram, a He added that the study “con- could help the brain to break out
selective-serotonin reuptake inhi- firms psilocybin could be a real of the rut in a way traditional the-
bitor (SSRI) sold under the name alternative approach to depressi- rapies cannot.
Lexapro. on treatments.” The paper builds However, the experts at Imperi-
“These findings are important off of previous research from Im- al College London cautioned that
because for the first time we find perial, and analyzed MRI scans patients with depression should
that psilocybin works differently from nearly 60 patients with tre- not attempt to self-medicate with
from conventional antidepres- atment-resistant depression. One psilocybin.