Updated March 9th, 2020 at 14:39 IST
Australia's first stool bank to pay $25 to poo donors for faecal transplant
A stool bank in Australia, BiomeBank, has become the first public stool bank to pay $25 to people who donate their poo for faecal transplants.
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BiomeBank has become Australia's first public stool bank to pay people to donate their poo for faecal transplants. This laboratory in South Australia is giving people $25 for every faecal donation they make. It helps people with debilitating infections or chronic bowel conditions get better via faecal transplants.
A faecal transplant refers to faecal matter, or stool, being collected from a donor. The matter is mixed with a solution, strained, and placed in a patient by colonoscopy, endoscopy or enema. The aim is to replace the recipient's "bad" gut bacteria with the donor's "good" bacteria, as per reports.
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Hospital Research Foundation, which is funding the BiomeBank, stores and processes healthy stool so that it can be distributed to hospitals around the country and overseas. The founders of the bank, doctors Sam Costello and Rob Byrant, want to increase accessibility to the lifesaving treatment and are encouraging more people to donate their poo. The stool is used for patients requiring faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), a breakthrough treatment with a 90 per cent cure rate of chronic bowel disorders.
1 in 250 Australians suffer from inflammatory bowel disease
As per reports, one in 250 Australians suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, making the work of the bank important. For this, the bank is looking for individuals without medical problems and who are not on medication. The donors have to undergo a rigorous screening process before they are cleared to donate.
Once stool is donated, it is then processed by mixing it with saline and glycerine.The processed stool is then stored in a minus 80-degree Celsius freezer until needed. A dry ice courier transports it to hospital where it can be used as required. The faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is given via colonoscopy or enema into the patient's large bowel, according to the reports.
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According to doctors, FMTs are mainly used to treat people suffering from C. diff infections, a condition becoming more common due to the widespread use of antibiotics. C. diff is life-threatening for a proportion of patients and can lead to intensive care admissions, as well as colectomy, which is the removal of the large bowel for those who are most severely affected.
As per reports, the bank is treating about 30 patients a year in South Australia alone. One of them is Jo O'Brien, whose life was turned upside down in 2018 when she contracted a Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection. As per reports, she used to have between 30 and 40 lots of antibiotics. To treat herself, she went to Bali on a yoga retreat where she contracted C. diff . She was weak and had no good stomach bacteria left.
According to reports, doctors have been exploring the potential benefits for FMT, which is widely used to treat complications from antibiotic therapy. It's also being used on people with IBS, MS, autism and Parkinson's to see if it makes a difference.
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Published March 9th, 2020 at 14:39 IST
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