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What Is Antimicrobial Resistance?
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Over the last decade, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Indoor Air Quality problems and health issues involving mold growth and other IAQ Contaminants.
HGIA is providing environmentally friendly solutions for mold and other indoor contaminants that address what medical professionals refer to as “Antimicrobial Resistance”.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control defines antimicrobial resistance as, “the result of microbes changing in ways that reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents to cure or prevent infections”. Microbes include, mold, bacteria and viruses, which are simple and single celled organisms.
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Microbes have the ability to change its DNA make up, forming immunity to chemicals and antimicrobial disinfectants as a means of survival. This can include cleaning solutions, antimicrobial paints and other chemicals that may be used to remove or prevent mold from indoor environments.What this means is that molds are adapting to not only the chemicals we have been using to kill them with, but they are also changing due the pesticides, chemicals and pollution in the natural environment where molds originate.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “Drug-resistant infectious agents – those that are not killed or inhibited by antimicrobial compounds – are an increasingly important public health concern. Antimicrobial resistance is becoming a factor in virtually all hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections. All major groups of microorganisms — viruses, molds, and parasites as well as bacteria — eventually become resistant to antimicrobials”.
The NIH report continues, “A key factor in the development of antimicrobial resistance is the ability of infectious organisms to adapt quickly to new environmental conditions. Microbes generally are single and simple celled organisms that, compared with multi cellular organisms, have a small number of genes.Even a single random gene mutation can have a large impact on their disease-causing properties; and since most microbes replicate very rapidly, they can evolve rapidly. Thus, a mutation that helps a microbe survive in the presence of an antibiotic drug will quickly become predominant throughout the microbial population”.
Due to this resistance, there has been an increase in new drug-resistant diseases, as well as the reemergence of previously controlled viruses, bacteria and diseases, including SARS, West Nile Virus and Salmonella, just to name a few. Today’s connection to aggressive mold growth in indoor environments can be partially attributed to the extensive use of antimicrobial products, such as soaps, disinfectants, bleach, etc.
Mold and Our Changing Environment
With mold’s growing resistance to antimicrobial chemicals and disinfectants, as well as ongoing changes in our environment, it really should be no surprise that molds may have altered in terms of species dominance and are thriving in a wider variety of circumstances and conditions in response to these changes.
For example, only a few years ago, a building with a roof leak may typically only show signs of water damage on the ceiling tiles. Today, that roof leak or even minor condensation collecting in the ceiling or wall cavities is enough to cause a major mold problem affecting occupant health.
This is a serious problem for hundreds of thousands of families in the U.S. because their HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems are amplifying and spreading the air borne contaminants through out the main living space.
A similar situation is also happening to hundreds of thousands of workers in buildings where the HVAC system is contaminated and distributing very poor air quality. In today’s changing environment, it is not enough just to change filters in the HVAC system. These systems and their ductwork must be cleaned and disinfected with specific treatments.
Environmentally Friendly Solutions
HGIA recommends environmentally friendly technologies and solutions, such as Oxygen Therapy Systems™, which do not use chemicals, but multiple atoms of oxygen to oxidize the DNA in microbes including molds, bacteria and viruses.
These microbes cannot form resistance to multi molecular oxygen, as oxidation is their natural enemy. The reaction that occurs when individual atoms of oxygen attach themselves to mold spores, bacteria and viruses is oxidation. The atoms of oxygen will actually penetrate the outer cell wall of the microbes and will naturally sterilize the DNA of these microbes.
This natural and environmentally friendly solution, more than meets the challenges presented by the increase of molds in recent years. HGIA stands behind this process as the safest and most effective method of resolving a wide variety of indoor environmental issues.
Click Here For Non-Chemical Methods of Mold Remediation?
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