- Another antibiotic crisis: fragile supply leads to shortages (reuters.com)
Shortages of some life-saving antibiotics are putting growing numbers of patients at risk and fuelling the evolution of “superbugs” that do not respond to modern medicines...The non-profit Access to Medicine Foundation said there was an emerging crisis in the global anti-infectives market as fragile drug supply chains - reliant on just a few big suppliers - come close to collapse...Global demand for antibiotics has grown by two-thirds since 2000, driven by population growth and the need for medicines to fight infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries...Most antibiotics are cheap, off-patent generic medicines, which is good for affordability. But that also means they have very low profit margins - particularly compared to modern drugs for diseases like cancer - offering manufacturers little incentive to invest in new production facilities...antibiotic shortages can have especially dire consequences, since doctors have to resort to sub-optimal treatments that are less efficient at killing specific pathogens, leading to the rise of resistant bacteria or so-called superbugs...
- Proof-of-concept study shows successful transport of blood samples with small drones (medicalxpress.com)Can Unmanned Aerial Systems (Drones) Be Used for the Routine Transport of Chemistry, Hematology, and Coagulation Laboratory Specimens? (journals.plos.org)
proof-of-concept study…researchers have shown that results of common and routine blood tests are not affected by up to 40 minutes of travel via hobby-sized drones… investigators say that's promising news…people ..in rural and economically impoverished areas ...give health care workers quick access to lab tests.. Drones already have been tested as carriers of medicines…