Antibiotics Are Antibiotics Used For - 1198 Words

Antibiotics What are antibiotics used for? Antibiotics are used to fight infections which are caused by bacteria. They are not effective against viruses. What are antibiotics? Antibiotics can either be bactericidal or bacteriostatic. Bactericidal antibiotics act to kill bacteria and bacteriostatic act to inhibit and slow down the growth or bacteria. By doing this the antibiotics allow the hosts defence mechanisms to kill the bacteria or fight infection. Where do antibiotics come from? Lead compounds used in the formation of antibiotics are metabolites from microorganisms. These metabolites can be used as antibiotics by themselves or can be further developed to produce new antibiotics. Fungi are also used to inhibit the growth of†¦show more content†¦Penicillin for example acts on peptidoglycan which is only found in prokaryotic cell walls. It is possible for drugs with low therapeutic index to attack or inhibit structures or pathways in the host, this produces the side effects of the drug. How are antibiotics classified? Antibiotics are classified in three main ways: †¢ Their specificity ie. Do they have a broad or narrow spectrum (some antibiotics will act on many different pathogens whereas some will be more specific and only act on certain strains) †¢ The microbial group they attack – antibacterial, antifungal and antiprotozoan †¢ How they stain in the Gram stain procedure What is the gram stain? The Gram stain is a chemical preparation which allows bacteria to be classified into Gram positive and Gram negative by their ability to retain the stain. Bacteria which keep the purple stain are Gram positive and those that loose the stain or turn a pink colour are Gram negative. This procedure is based on the differences in the cell walls structure. The bacterial cell walls will all contain peptidoglycan but the gram positive bacteria the peptidoglycan layer will be thicker. Gram negative, as well as having a thinner peptidoglycan layer, will also have lipopolysaccharides covering the peptidoglycan layer causing less of the stain to be retained. Functions of antibiotics. †¢ Inhibit the synthesis of cell

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL REPORT OF HIV/AIDS INFECTION IN NIGERIA...

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL REPORT OF HIV/AIDS INFECTION IN NIGERIA INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND: HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a retrovirus which infects, impairs or destroys the cells of the immune system and functions. Progression of the infection (severe immunodeficiency) leads to weaker immune system rendering an individual susceptible to more infections. These infections are termed opportunistic infections. At its most advanced phase, HIV is called AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) and characterised by cancers related to HIV or any of twenty opportunistic infections (WHO, 2013; WHO 2014a). There are various mode of transmitting HIV infection such as sexual transmission, parenteral transmission and†¦show more content†¦Worldwide, at the end of 2012 32.2 to 38.8 million 2people were living with HIV/AIDS and 1.6 million people have died of AIDS related diseases. 0.8% adults worldwide between the ages of 15 to 49 years are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS but burden of the disease varies between regions and countries with sub-Saharan Africa being the most affected where 1 in every 20 adults live with the condition and accounts for 71% of the people worldwide living with HIV (WHO, 2014c). As at 2011, there were 839,600 pregnant women living with HIV in middle and low resource countries and about 280,000 to 390,000 children are estimated to have been newly infected. A total of 3.3 million children younger than 15 years globally are living with HIV (WHO, 2014d). 3.0 PREVALENCE AND SITUATION OF HIV INFECTION IN NIGERIA Nigerias population is estimated to be 162,256,000, making it the most populous country in sub Saharan Africa, has a HIV prevalence rate of 4.1%, with over 3.1 million people estimated to be infected and living with the virus and 1,512,720 requiring antiretroviral therapy. This figure ranks Nigeria third country in the world after India and South Africa carrying the globes highest burden of HIV and AIDS (Federal Ministry of Health

Commercial Law Negligence and Claim

Question: Describe about the Commercial Law for Negligence and Claim. Answer: Issue Taking into consideration the facts relating to the situation, offer advice to Rebecca as to whether she would be successful in her negligence claim. Rule In order to prove negligence and claim damages, the plaintiff needs to ensure that the three conditions highlighted below are satisfied (Lindgren, 2011). There is a duty to care on behalf of the defendant directed towards the plaintiff. This duty of care has been breached due to the negligent conduct of the defendant. As a result of this breach, the plaintiff suffers damage Duty to Care The commonly used test to opine on whether the defendant is bound by the duty to care is Neighbor test This test advocates that neighbor is any entity which may suffer damage on account of the choices made by the activity doer in event of going ahead or refraining from doing the same(Gibson Fraser, 2014). This has been advocated in the case discussion of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] AC 562 at 580 case. In the context of ascertaining neighbour, the purview of damage is fairly wide and includes harm that may be intangible such as mention and emotional sufferings. It is noteworthy that the duty to care extends to prevention of only that harm which is possibly foreseeable and harm that is highly unlikely is not bound by the duty to care (Davenport Parker, 2014). Breach of duty The defendant in order to discharge the responsibility of duty to care must take measures that are reasonable so as to protect the neighbor from damage due to the causes that are foreseeable. The taking of reasonable measures by the defendant effectively amounts to the discharge of the duty (Harvey, 2009). It is imperative that the care nature and intensity is driven by the nature and intensity of the risk present in a situation. If measures expected reasonable are not undertaken, then it implies that there has been a breach in the duty to care. However, any damage sustained by the neighbor despite the duty being discharged does not amount to negligence (Pendleton Vickery, 2005). Harm/Damages For negligence to be established, it is required that the breach of duty on the part of the defendant must be linked to the damage incurred on the part of the plaintiff. In order to ascertain the same, it needs to be established that the damage caused was preventable provided that defendant did not breach the duty of care. Besides, the damages suffered by the plaintiff are wide in scope and besides monetary loss and physical injury includes inconvenience and torture (mental and emotional) (Latimer, 2005). Further, it may be possible in select cases that harm caused is not linked to the breach of duty even though breach of duty has taken place. In such cases negligence is deemed to be not established. There are certain remedies which the defendant may avail to reduce the overall liability on account of negligence (Gibson Fraser, 2014). Defence Available Partial or complete relief in terms of tort liability may be available to defendant on deployment of defence strategies. A particular defence that is of use in the situation presented is the with regards to assumption of voluntary risk (Lindgren, 2011). In accordance with this, if the plaintiff willingly makes the choice of being present in a situation where risk is present, then if damages are incurred, it is imperative that some portion of the negligence should be attributed to the plaintiff as well for taking the incorrect choice of indulging in a risky situation. Therefore, since both defendant and plaintiff act in a negligent manner, hence the liability is shared between the two based on the exact circumstances (Harvey, 2009). Application The given situation involves two individuals Rebecca and Michelle who have gone to see a performance but due to delay in the performance, both end up getting drunk. By the time the performance ended, it was apparent to Rebecca that Michelle was not in her senses and due to alcohol consumption, going home with her would be highly risky. But, Rebecca chose to ignore these fears and made the choice that she would go with Michelle. Michelle drove the car dangerously and therefore Rebecca told her to pull over so that she could get out. But, Michelle does not listen to these pleas by Rebecca and continues driving till the car finally crashes and Rebecca is injured. As per the case, the driver is Michelle and there is clear duty to care on her part towards all the passengers that may be present in the car since she is incharge of the car. Hence, Rebecca is a neighbour in the given case. Ideally Michelle should not have offered a drive as she was drunk and hence there has been a breach in the duty to care on her part. Also, when Rebecca told her to pull over she still acted negligently and did not stop the car. In the event of Michelle yielding to Rebeccas request of pulling over and also not driving under the influence of alcohol, the injuries to Rebecca would not have happened. Thus, the tort of negligence is established as all conditions are satisfied. But, Michelle could reduce her liability arising from her negligence by citing that Rebecca should have turned down Michelles request as she was appraised of the situation and knew that this is possible. Conclusion Rebecca would be successful in her claim of negligence directed towards Michelle although part of negligence has to be also borne by Rebecca as she voluntarily assumed the risk. References Davenport, S. Parker, D. 2014, Business and Law in Australia 2nd edition, LexisNexis Publications, Sydney Gibson, A Fraser, D 2014, Business Law, 8th edition, Pearson Publications, Sydney Latimer, P 2005, Australian business law, 24th edition, CCH Australia Ltd. Sydney Pendleton, W Vickery, N 2005, Australian business law: principles and applications, 5th edition, Pearson Publications, Sydney Harvey, C. 2009, Foundations of Australian law. 3rd eds., Tilde University Press, Prahran, Victoria Lindgren, KE 2011, Vermeesch and Lindgren's Business Law of Australia, 12th eds., LexisNexis Publications, Sydney Pathinayake, A 2014, Commercial and Corporations Law, 2nd eds., Thomson-Reuters, Sydney

Case Study Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Question: Discuss about theVolkswagen Emission Scandal. Answer: Introduction: Volkswagen, the worlds biggest car maker company, is indicted of installing software in its diesel vehicles which are sold since 2009 in the US cheats emissions tests by reporting the lower figures (Krall and Peng, 2015). Due to this in the short span of time share prices have fallen, there are lawsuits as well as recall issues. Moreover, criminal investigations are going on by US Department of Justice. Not only this, there is a threat of fine of around billion dollars. All these issues have led me to write a report focusing on the key issues as well as potential implications. Key Issues The company was trying to enter in the markets of U.S but unfortunately their vehicles did not meet the emission standards which were quite higher as compared to the requirements. Therefore, it is not possible that they are not aware that something wrong has been done to pass the emission tests. The company has tried various solutions to make it the best product. Initially, they have attempted to resolve the catalytic convertertechnology which was quite effective in reducing the nitrogen oxide gas from the exhaust of petrol engine. It did not work well in the exhaust of diesel engine due to the high percentage of oxygen. They have also tried to acquireMercedes'BlueTecmethod for reducing the effects of pollution. This technology was rejected by other parts of Volkswagen and therefore, they were forced to make their own system. Volkswagen started transferring their light-duty commuter vehiclesdiesel engines to a fuel injectionsystem. It helped them in getting higher fuel delivery by us ing electronicfuel injectorsas well as higher injection pressure, leading to fuelatomization, enhancedair/fuel ratiomanagement, and emission control. Thus they have started using the defeat device software. Volkswagen has used this software in 11 million cars worldwide and out of these 500,000 were sold in the US since 2009. In this, the engines are attached to the computer software which is smart enough that they can sense the test scenarios with the help of speed, air pressure as well as the steering wheel position (Schiermeier, 2015). The issue came into the light at the inspection of Environmental Protection Agency. The Environmental Protection Agency found the defeat device software in few Volkswagen car models. After detection of the test settings, it connects with the environmental friendly settings in which the speed of the engine is below normal power and ultimately improving the results of emission but this device automatically turns off when the vehicle is on the road so that drive performance can be enhanced (Chris and Gerhard, 2016). The main issue of Volkswagen was to increase the sale of diesel cars in the US. To increase the sales a massive marketing campaign was planned in which they declared that the cars' emission is less. The findings of EPA covered 482,000 diesel cars only in the US, which includes Audi A3, Jetta, Golf, Beetle, and Passat. Another issue was that they had modified the software of the 3-liter engines of diesel which is fitted in Porsche as well as Audi (Burki, 2015). The company has denied these complaints at the initial stage due to which 10,000 vehicles were affected. The crisis of the Volkswagen is due to the failure of culture in marketing, management of risk as well as internal controls. The interconnectivity between these parts is also a failure. The loss of reputation is an attribute of marketing approach. The task of marketing is to increase the sales but also to get the messages from the environment. Volkswagen is considered as an environment-friendly car due to which a lot of consumers have brought the cars but due to the emission scandal they trust on the company is broken. These emissions have caused adverse effects on the environment as well as the health of the individuals (Oldenkamp, van Zelm and Huijbregts, 2016). Now building the trust again is a long as well as hard process. Secondly, the risk management process of the organization tries to identify the risks apart from the financial as well as operational risks which can affect the image of the company. Some of these risks are ethical, social as well as environmental concerns. These risks although cannot be easily identified as they fall outside from the area of expertise, but it is necessary and possible to keep an eye on any of the wrong doing happening inside the organization. Ultimately, this wrong doing will turn as one of the major crisis in the long run. The third and the most important aspect is the internal control or audit. In this aspect, the monitoring of all the functions is done by checking the product against the set standards. The controls should be developed for areas where there is the higher tendency of manipulation. All the three functional areas can avoid reputational problems. If these systems are synchronized with each other, then it will become the perfect system without any chances of manipulation. Potential Implications Emission scandal led to the investigation of the Volkswagen Company in various countries. The stock prices have fallen in worth by a third in the days straight away after the news. The CEOMartin Winterkornhas resigned. Not only this, various personnels in the top ranks have been suspended such as the brand development head, R D head. Apart from this the organization has announced to spendUS$18.32 billion on fixing the emissions issues and have initiated the recall campaign in which they will refit the concerned vehicles (Altman, 2002). These vehicles have a tendency to emit gasses more than expected in the real driving conditions Approximately 50,000 US vehicles have been told to recall by the Obama administration. Due to this, they have set aside $7.3bn for covering the cost of recalls as well as other damage limitation.The market value of the company is dropped by 23% during the last year end after they have admitted that they cheated the diesel emissions (Licker, 2006). It has af fected the sales to a great extent. In U.S. there is a decline of around 25 percent in sales in November 2015. The total estimated cost is likely to exceed $8 billion because of this emission scandal. The effects are not limited to this. There are certain invisible as well as long term damages associated with it for e.g. the negative effect on the trust of the brand, customer satisfaction, and reputation, morale of the workers and trustworthiness, and investor confidence. It is easy to gain the lost money but it is difficult to rebuild the trust, once lost The emitted fumes have the ability to cause inflammation in the airways as well as they can worsen the breathing of anyone. NOx emissions can act in response to other compounds which will lead to serious respiratory conditions as well as heart problems. If the exposure is for the Long-term, then it can result to death. The research says that high levels of NOx lead to 9,500 premature deaths (Holland et al., 2016). It clearly shows that they have not fulfilled their Corporate social responsibility (Zhang et al., 2016). They have polluted the environment to a great extent and also disturbed the ecological balance which is against the ethics as well as the practices of the company. The implication of all this has stopped the sale of 2015 models, and the company is not allowed to sell the 2016 models till it fixes the program. It has put the other car makers also into a question that whether they are also using the similar kind of software. Due to this, many manufacturers are under pressure for giving the clarification (Mansouri, 2016). The Environmental Protection Agency of US will screen the other carmakers for the software "defeat devices". To overcome the crisis and gain the reputation back it is essential to have the strong leadership in which the employees feel free to raise their voice, and if anything like this is occurring then, the issues are brought into the eyes of the board. If the leaders are strong, then they will resolve the problems at the initial stages whereas on the other hand, weak leadership will lead to less chivalry as well as high materialism which have happened in the past. For earning more profits, they have put the lives of many people to danger (Barrett et al., 2015). To boost the morale of the existing employees, it is essential that the culture of the company is reshaped in which the emphasis should be on human values also apart from profit making. Building the integrity to gain the loyalty of the team members is the foremost step in reshaping the culture. Conclusion The corporate culture is a crucial factor (Fombrun and Foss, 2004). The board should be such where there is the diversity of opinion, and the voice of people is heard from time to time. Had there been synchronization in the marketing, risk management as well as the internal audit then such problem might not have evolved. The crisis has affected financially as well as there are invisible long term damages. The company must take steps in resurrecting the image. A plan is required to reduce the emissions and comply with the set standards. The measures should be such that emissions are reduced, and the performance is enhanced. A strong culture will be required for preventing any fraud in the coming future. References Altman, W. (2002). Getting the bugs out [Volkswagen in America].Engineering Management Journal, 12(1), p.5. Barrett, S., Speth, R., Eastham, S., Dedoussi, I., Ashok, A., Malina, R. and Keith, D. (2015). Impact of the Volkswagen emissions control defeat device on US public health.Environ. Res. Lett., 10(11), p.114005. Burki, T. (2015). Diesel cars and health: the Volkswagen emissions scandal.The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 3(11), pp.838-839. Chris, B. and Gerhard, v. (2016). An investigation of the marketing performance measurement practices in Hatfield Volkswagen group.African Journal of Business Management, 10(6), pp.131-139. Fombrun, C. and Foss, C. (2004). Business Ethics: Corporate Responses to Scandal.Corp Reputation Rev, 7(3), pp.284-288. Holland, S., Mansur, E., Muller, N. and Yates, A. (2016). Damages and Expected Deaths Due to Excess NO x Emissions from 2009 to 2015 Volkswagen Diesel Vehicles.Environmental Science Technology, 50(3), pp.1111-1117. Krall, J. and Peng, R. (2015). The Volkswagen scandal: Deception, driving and deaths.Significance, 12(6), pp.12-15. Licker, P. (2006). An Interview with Warren Ritchie, Director of IT Governance Americas Regions Volkswagen AG.Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 9(4), pp.72-76. Mansouri, N. (2016). A Case Study of Volkswagen Unethical Practice in Diesel Emission Test.IJSEA, 5(4), pp.211-216. Oldenkamp, R., van Zelm, R. and Huijbregts, M. (2016). Valuing the human health damage caused by the fraud of Volkswagen.Environmental Pollution, 212, pp.121-127. Schiermeier, Q. (2015). The science behind the Volkswagen emissions scandal.Nature. Zhang, B., Marita, V., Veijalainen, J., Wang, S. and Kotkov, D. (2016). The Issue Arena of a Corporate Social Responsibility Crisis The Volkswagen Case in Twitter.Studies in Media and Communication, 4(2).