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112 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
an antibiotic and natural photosensitizer) and shining blue light. This is very dangerous!”
S. aureus: “Holi and blue light? What is this, Patlu?”
E. coli: “This combination is called photodynamic therapy. They use this technique to kill microbes, treat acne, and cancer.”
S. aureus: “Is it? Hey Patlu! How do you know all these?”
E. coli: “I keep updating myself so that I can make a strategy to become more resistant and stronger.”
S. aureus: “Patlu, you are a genius. This combination of color and light is terrifying me as my skin is thin and sensitive with a single fat jacket. Well, not like you, you have a double-fat jacketed skin.”
E. coli: “Yes, I am a bit resistant, but still, these Holi color affects even me. Hey Golu, did you read about our relative’s death because of these CFTRI people in the newspaper International Journal of Food Microbiology?”
S. aureus: “What our
relative’s death!!! No, Patlu, I didn’t come across that paper.”
E. coli: “It’s okay, Golu. Let me share my fiery pain with you! Around 100,000 of our relatives were killed because of these people. They have ruined the lives of our
family members by exposing them to different temperatures and soaking in various doses of Holi color for hours.”
S. aureus: “They are ruthless!”
E. coli: “Yes, Golu. These researchers have also performed the post-mortem of our relatives. They scanned the dead bodies with the help of a scanning electron microscope and showed body fluid oozing out and shrunken and flattened dead bodies with holes.”
S. aureus: “What! Holes on the body? How did it happen?”
E. coli: “Researchers found that our relatives were killed by reactive oxygen species (ROS).”
S. aureus: “What is this ROS, and how will it kill us, Patlu?”
E. coli: “Golu, listen carefully. When this Holi color takes up energy from light, it jumps to an excited state. While coming back to the ground state, the energy from yellow color is transferred to oxygen, which we breathe, to form singlet oxygen or ROS. This
ROS attacks our skin and kills us.”
S. aureus: “Very dangerous ROS. We
have to keep away from it.”
E. coli: “Yes, Golu, ROS has killed our
family members very badly by creating pores on their bodies and fluids spilling out of it.”
World Health Organization joined their hands with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to plan strategies to fight against antimicrobial resistance in the food chain.