Can We Win The War Against Superbug Antibiotic Resistance?

At least two million people are infected with antibiotic resistant superbugs and at least 23,000 die from them.

Our global society is a fragile network, which is easily shaken and superbugs have the ability to damage society in the future. The rates of drug resistant bacteria infecting the community and people in hospital have been increasing at high rates in the recent years (Infectious Diseases 2005). A big concern for the spread of these superbugs is within hospitals. Their immense hygiene routines are vital to prevent the spread of bacteria and dangerous illnesses, yet this is where superbugs are most likely to be picked up. As the hospitals hygiene levels are increased more and more each year, only the strongest bacteria survive (Staines 2008). With over 1 billion people travelling overseas a year the spread of superbugs is rapid. Joel Beclu, an Australian who had recently been overseas had a prostate biopsy procedure done. The next day he was feeling ill and realised he had caught an infection and was back in hospital. After evaluation it was found the procedure had unleashed a superbug into his blood stream. The infection spread over his body and he experienced extreme pain. He was put on a rare course of antibiotics and recovered after a few months. This is a real concern as these superbugs infect other people in the hospital or can get out into the community they could be unstoppable (Thompson

The world health organisation has announced antibiotic resistance and the rise of superbugs as a great threat to human race. Superbugs are defined as bacteria equipped bacteria with "bullet proof vests” of antibiotic resistance that deflect "magic silver bullets" of antibiotics. Under right circumstances, they can transfer the antibiotic resistance genes to other bacteria and completely paralyse humans to combat against bacteria (news.com.au 2014). In Australia, thousands of people per year are diagnosed with superbugs and these victims often face a prolonged illness and ultimately death (Pogson 2012). The severity of the problem can become apparent by referring to the death attributable to antibiotic resistance every year from 2014 to 2050,

The second installment of the video series “Rx for Survival,” concerned itself with implications pertaining to bacteria that have become antibiotic-resistant and was titled “Rise of the Superbugs.” The video presented the cases of individuals who were afflicted with maladies resulting from bacterial infections that were not being impeded by the normative pharmaceutical care that we have used for many decades and take for granted.

In the last fifty years, the most prominent and transformative medical advancement made was the discovery of antibiotics and disinfectants. On the contrary, with the uncovering of antibiotics came the repercussion of the progressively threatening antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria or ‘superbugs’ formed due to the lack of care from the people to follow through with simple safety procedures in order to entirely get rid of bacterial illnesses and infections. Appropriate precautions are necessary and expectedly need to be taken, in order to minimize and possibly prohibit the formation, continual growth and limit the strength of resistance in the antibiotic-resistant superbugs, and most importantly to preserve medical advancements

As a writer for The Globe and Mail, Jennifer Yang, stated, “Anti-bacterial products containing anti-microbial agents are being increasingly marketed to Canadians for personal and household use despite a lack of evidence for additional benefit and serious concerns about the potential for increased bacterial resistance.” The concern she is talking about is centred in the use of the products such as disinfectant sprays, of which can kill 99.9% of bacteria on a given surface. The 0.1% that is left remaining is the mutated antibiotic-resistant super bug which the disinfectant is unable to kill due to its mutated nature. And being the only type left, it has no competitors remaining for resources and can divide at a rapid pace, giving birth to a larger colony of highly dangerous pathogens. The same phenomena occurs when patients stop taking antibiotics half way through their treatment. The amount of bacteria in their body at that point has a higher percentage of stronger bacteria than the weaker. Therefore, when the patient decides to stop their antibiotic treatment, they inadvertently create more resistant bacteria than there originally was in their body, as the mutated bacteria now has more room to grow. If those bacteria are then passed on to another person, the rate of resistant bacteria dramatically increases, raising the amount of near invincible pathogens in the world by another percentage.

One of the greatest problems our world faces today is rising antibiotic resistance in viruses, bacteria and pathogens in general. This is a human-driven problem; the more we use antibiotics to save lives today, the stronger the pathogens infecting and harming us tomorrow will be. The entire problem is based in natural selection because antibiotics kill all of a pathogen except for a special few who were themselves deformed in a way that enabled them to survive. These then become the pathogens that infect everyone, so the previous solution is no longer able to solve the problem the next time around. There can be no single concrete solution, but rather endless research and discovery to stop these pathogens from causing death and destruction

Antibiotics have been an important instrument in public health since 1928, saving the lives of people around the world. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2015), about half of antibiotics used in human and animals are unnecessarily and inappropriately prescribed, leading to the emergence of drug resistance in bacteria (CDC, 2015). The CDC estimates that drug-resistant bacteria cause two million illnesses and approximately 23,000 deaths each year in the United States alone (2015).

The increased population of the world along with availability of global transport means resulted in the advancement of critical health situations that the current treatments cannot manage efficiently (Abdulamir 1). The World Economic Forum (WEF) concludes that, “We live in a bacterial world where we will never be able to stay ahead of the mutation curve. A test of our resilience is how far behind the curve we allow ourselves to fall” (Spellberg, et al.). Antibiotic resistance is truly driven by microbial exposure to all antibiotics whether they are appropriately prescribed or not (Spellberg, et al.). For example, antibiotic resistance was recently discovered among bacteria found in underground caves that had been isolated from the planet’s surface for four million years and was even found in synthetic antibiotics that were nonexistent on earth until the 20th century (Spellberg, et al.). As the cave example shows, antibiotic-resistant infections would prevail even if all antibiotic use was restricted and appropriate, so just restricting prescriptions alone will not suffice. Any more of the typical antibiotics found and even the new antimicrobials currently helping will not effectively fight resistance, for they will eventually be overpowered by the growth of resistance (Roemhild, et al. 945). By considering the evolution

In this paper, I address some major ethical issues associated with the ineffective use of Antibiotics which contributes to Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), as Antimicrobial resistance is a direct consequence of not considering several bioethical factors associated with proper use of antibiotics since its advent. The Antimicrobial resistance is a result of ceaseless selection pressure over bacterial population during several generations from human application of antibiotics through overuse, underuse and misuse. In the first section, I have discussed why AMR currently has become one of the major public health concerns and the impacts of the AMR on global public health should not merely be viewed as a technical or medical problem but as a distinct

Antibiotic resistance has evolved as a result of the interactions between bacteria and antibiotic after an antibiotic exposure. Bacterial species are capable of adapting to new antibiotic as simply as they adapt to new environments due to their amazing genomic plasticity. This in turn results antibiotic resistance to be very dynamic and unpredictable. “Every year, almost 100,000 Americans die from antibiotic-resistant infections acquired from hospitals, largely because of the reduced effectiveness of existing drugs, due to the development and propagation of drug resistance

Evolution is a gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. Charles Darwin proposed a theory, now called the Theory of Evolution, stating that animals differentiated into species when the survivors of a changing environment were able to pass their genetic traits to their offspring. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory that can be tested by observations and application of the scientific method. Support for the theory of evolution is based on fossil evidence that has accumulated throughout the geologic history of the Earth. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a contemporary example of the adaptation of life-forms in response to their environment.

(3, 4, 6) The United States reports two million people infected with an antimicrobial resistant bacteria and out of two million individuals, 23,000 of those people die each year. (7) Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is a reported nosocomial, antimicrobial resistant bacteria that infects 250,000 individuals each year. (7, 8) Out of the 250,000 individuals infected with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), there is a recorded 14,000 deaths. (7, 8) Bacterial resistance is an emerging and ongoing public health threat that causes significantly higher rates of morbidity and mortality compared to antimicrobial-susceptible bacteria. (3, 4, 6) A key factor contributing to the rise in antimicrobial resistant bacteria is the significance of person-to-person or indirect contact, which coherently passes resistant strains of bacteria. (8) The effectiveness and informal access of antibiotics in the 20th century has led to overuse and the emergence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria. (3)

We are in the midst of an emerging crisis of antibiotic resistance for microbial pathogens in the United States and throughout the world. Antibiotic resistance occurs when an antibiotic has lost its ability to effectively control or kill bacterial growth. These trends have led many experts that the potential for a “super microbial pathogen” that is resistant to all treatments is in the realm of possibilities due to mutations seen in bacteria and viruses. If treatments are rendered completely ineffective due to resistance then the potential for incredible mortality rates and mass extinction begins to become a troubling truth.

The overuse of antibiotics has been a problem for well over a decade. This misuse leads to many nonvisible problems arising within the human population. As the use of antibiotics increases, the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria also increases. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, another antibiotic must be used to try and kill it and the cycle becomes vicious. Michael Martin, Sapna Thottathil, and Thomas Newman stated that antimicrobial resistance is, “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” (2409).