StockGuru Blog : Medizone International – Looking at the Problem of Infections in our Hospitals
Dear Members:
I think as we go into Thursday’s trading we need to take a very close look at Medizone International, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MZEI). They put out a tremendously important release yesterday. I am going to show it to you below. I wanted to first comment on the importance of the problem that all hospitals face with infections. Take a look at this:
The Silent Epidemic
The chart you see above represents the Nosocomial infections outside intensive care units for U.S. hospitals in 2002.
As the notes that came from the source for this chart point out, Nosocomial infections are a huge problem in hospitals today. Although this data is from 2002, the situation has progressively become more serious. Here are the notes that accompanied the chart:
“From the total number of surgical site infections (SSI) obtained from the National Hospital Discharge Dataset and the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system, we subtracted the number of SSI among newborns and adults and children in intensive care units. The remaining SSI were among adults and children outside of intensive care units. From hospital-wide surveillance in NNIS, we had the distribution of infectons by major site and calculated the corresponding number of infections for pneumonias (PNEU), urinary tract infections (UTI), bloodstream infections (BSI), and other sites.”
The Impact of Nosocomial Infections in The United States
In 2002, there were approximately 1.7 million total infections. Of these:
- 33,269 occurred among newborns in high-risk nurseries
- 19,059 among newborns in well-baby nurseries
- 417,946 among adults and children in ICUs
- 1,266,851 among adults and children outside of ICUs.
In that year, the estimated deaths in U.S. hospitals were 98,987. Of these:
- 35,967 were for pneumonia
- 30,665 for bloodstream infections
- 13,088 for urinary tract infections
- 8,205 for surgical site infections, and
- 11,062 for infections of other sites.[1]
Nosocomial Infections are an International Problem
In a World Health Organization Survey of 55 hospitals in 14 countries representing four regions, an average 8.7% of hospital patients had nosocomial infections.
What are some of these Infections?
Here is a short list: C-difficile, E-coli, Pseudomonas aeruginous, MRSA and VRE, the main causative agents of hospital derived nosocomial infections.
How bad are some of these?
C. Difficile
C. Difficile is the most serious cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) and can lead to pseudomembranous colitis, a severe infection of the colon, often resulting from eradication of the normal gut flora by antibiotics. Some estimates place the added cost to the healthcare for C. Difficile alone at $17.6 million daily. The CDC estimates that C. Difficile ases in the US may reach 500,000 annually leading to potentially 30,000 deaths.
MRSA
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans. MRSA are by definition strains of Staphylococcus aureus that are resistant to a large group of antibiotics called the beta-lactams. CDC reported (JAMA, 2007) that the number of serious infections by MRSA in 2006 was close to 100,000, with approximately 19,000 associated deaths.
Medizone International plans to use their Ozone product to fight this. Here is that very important release. Soon we will talk about the market. Just how great is this market? More on that today.
Medizone Announces a Second Round of Trials Have Begun
SAN FRANCISCO, June 3 — Medizone International, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MZEI) is pleased to announce the commencement of a second series of laboratory trials of the Company’s AsepticSure hospital sterilization technology, which is intended to build upon the success of its research to date. Dr. Michael E. Shannon, Director of Medical Affairs for Medizone stated, “Our first round of trials using this technology produced results that exceeded our expectations in demonstrating significant bactericidal effects against C-difficile, E-coli, Pseudomonas aeruginous, MRSA and VRE, the main causative agents of hospital derived nosocomial infections. With the introduction of several new technological developments into this next series of trials, we believe AsepticSure will emerge dominant in the industry not only for the decontamination of hospital facilities but also for applications currently thought to be unassailable.”
Medizone anticipates completion of these new studies by early July, whereupon it intends to commence field trials in preparation for marketing later this calendar year. To learn more about these global health concerns the AsepticSure system addresses, please visit the company’s web site: www.medizoneint.com. From the home page, go to AsepticSure. The presentation offered is a detailed analysis of the global health problems caused by hospital derived nosocomial infections.
Stay close… we will keep you updated on MZEI!
Thank you,
John Pentony
Publisher, StockGuru
