12 - Fiber and textile in drug delivery to combat multidrug resistance microbial infection

Abstract

Medical textile is a booming area within the textile sector that has significantly increased research focus over the past 10 years. It is rapidly becoming a vital part of the textile business. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) or multidrug resistance (MDR) has emerged as a major health concern and a big challenge issue throughout the world in recent years. After decades of neglect, the AMR has now gained international notice. Antibiotic-resistant strains have posed a danger to science and medicine’s achievements since they render traditional antimicrobial therapies ineffective. Various fiber and textile fabrication methods may be utilized to develop and create fibrous components, needed for targeted and controlled medication delivery systems, therefore contributing to the fighting strategies against AMR. Antimicrobial agents of several types, such as quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), polybiguanides, triclosan, metals, and their oxides, natural dyes, natural polymers, herbal extracts, and essential oils, have been utilized and administered with textile fibers. Because of technological breakthroughs, particularly but not primarily in nanotechnology, the specialized healthcare textile sector is undergoing tremendous evolution and extension, especially in fields such as wound and tissue repair, personal protective clothing or equipment (PPE), sterile gauze, surgical hosiery, and implantable textiles (e.g., vascular grafts, surgical suture, reabsorbable polymers). Additionally, to be a vital force against microbes, every antimicrobial therapy applied to the textile must be nontoxic both for human health and the ecosystem. The book chapters introduce antimicrobial textiles, antimicrobial nanofibers, and metal-integrated nanoparticles-based fabrics as solutions to the AMR and MDR problems.