Scourge of superbugs killing Malawi's babies

[oberliner]

Source: CNN

In a sweltering room in the corner of the Chatinkha nursery in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, Lilian Matchaya is expressing milk.

Her daughter, Abigail, is nearby, lying in a wooden cot with a UV light overhead keeping her at the right temperature. Her head wrapped in a bandage, Abigail has a plastic feeding tube going into her nose.

Matchaya, 38, inserts a syringe of breast milk into the tube, and it travels slowly down the translucent pipe. The sounds of infants crying, machines beeping and nurses pushing trolleys fill the ward.

Abigail was born prematurely at seven months and weighed just 1.8 kilograms (3 pounds) at birth, little more than a bag of flour. She needed an injection of aminophylline, which dilates the lung's cells, to help her breathe, and the day after her birth, nurses found her passed out with blood in her stool.


Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/health/malawi-superbugs-antimicrobial-resistance-among-newborns-intl/index.html

[progree]

1. The link is an incredible read about conditions in general there n/t

[oberliner]

2. Agreed

Absolutely staggering.

[NickB79]

3. When a fully resistant bug takes off, we're screwed

At the rate resistance is developing to antibiotics, and how slowly we're developing new drugs, it's just a matter of time before a global pandemic wipes out millions. Even here in the US.