Melbourne scientists have found out how the bug called the golden staph can become deadly and how it can save over millions of lives. Senior researcher Abdou Hachani of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne is leading a research group. He has posted a shocking discovery in the medical journal eLife. The golden staph can escape from the human immune system by hiding in human cells. That can cause infections and other diseases. Luckily Hachani’s team found out so doctors can make special treatment, so patients don’t get seriously ill.
There are 4,000 golden staph cases a year in Australia, with 20 percent of people dying. Death can occur when the golden staph gets into a human’s bloodstream. Before this study, scientists thought that the golden staph was a pathogen that couldn’t get in the cells. Tim Stinear, a molecular microbiologist at Melbourne university said, “this new knowledge will guide research to find new ways to combat these infections.”
The team took samples of 400 people that had golden staph in Australia and New Zealand to arrive at this conclusion. “We were lucky to have a very large collection of clinical isolates, or golden staph isolated from blood infections,” Dr Hachani said. “These were a key part to verify our hypotheses. And having isolates coming from real patients, causing real damage gave us the fuel for big data analysis. This news would be life-saving,” he added.
Scientists estimate that in 2050 superbugs would cause over 10 million deaths, which would be more deadly than Covid. “This discovery means that we will be able to design ‘a la carte’ treatments for patients with golden staph before we reach the doom date of 2050,” Dr Hachani said.