Together with the Daughters of St. Camillus in Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Uganda, Intermed ETS has promoted the use of ozone therapy to treat wounds and tropical ulcers.

Among these, Buruli ulcer has a strong social impact. It is named after a region of Uganda where many cases of the disease occurred many years ago.

We continue to work on this disease today, and every two years we take part in the Neglected Skin Diseases World Meeting held at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

Intermed ETS staff, together with the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the University of Brescia, published a case report in the British Medical Journal showing, at histological and molecular level, that ozone can kill the bacterium responsible for Buruli disease, also known as "the leprosy of the 2000s".

With the help of laboratory technicians Osvaldo Martelli and Moris Cadei and biologists Luisa Benerini and Piera Balzarini, we analysed samples taken from patients, applied Ziehl-Neelsen staining and confirmed the results by PCR (polymerase chain reaction): the Mycobacterium disappeared after two weeks of ozone therapy.

This research, carried out with Alma Izzo and Maria Letizia Iabichella of Helios Med Onlus, encourages our African fellow doctors to use this method, which above all:

• treats Buruli ulcer thanks to the bactericidal power of ozone;

• helps reduce or avoid the pain typical of surgical curettage;

• reduces complications from scar contracture and loss of function;

• improves the social impact of the disease, because it is both painless and low-cost.

Ozone promotes healing and, thanks to its bactericidal and virustatic properties, reduces the risk of superinfection. It also speeds up the healing of gunshot wounds, pressure sores, and diabetic or vascular ulcers. Finally, ozone therapy is painless and therefore well tolerated by patients.

The results of Intermed's research were published in the British Medical Journal. Link to the BMJ Case Report.

In 2023 Intermed ETS also published, in the Ozone Therapy Global Journal and in the International Journal of Ozone Therapy (Nuova FIO), the results of its research on treating patients suffering from both Buruli ulcer and Covid-19. At the meeting on NSDs (neglected skin diseases) held at the WHO in Geneva in March 2023, Intermed presented further work on the subject.