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Why this Brazilian city uses tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims

In a historic Brazilian city, burn patients look as if they’ve emerged from the waves. They are covered in fish skin — specifically strips of sterilized tilapia -- but why?

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“It’s a burn cream because there’s silver in it, so it prevents the burns from being infected. But it doesn’t help in terms of debriding a burn or necessarily helping it heal.”,  Dr. Jeanne Lee, interim burn director at the the regional burn center at the University of California at San Diego

“We got a great surprise when we saw that the amount of collagen proteins, types 1 and 3, which are very important for scarring, exist in large quantities in tilapia skin, even more than in human skin and other skins. Another factor we discovered is that the amount of tension, of resistance in tilapia skin is much greater than in human skin. Also the amount of moisture.”, Dr. Edmar Maciel, a plastic surgeon and burn specialist leading the clinical trials with tilapia skin.