Outline Of The Health Problem

In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.

It is thought that overuse of antibiotics is related to the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) (Austin). As a consequence, there has been an increasing trend to promote appropriate prescribing of antibiotics so as to maximise their therapeutic efficacy and minimise the outbreak of resistance. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs in hospitals are exemplary of a method used to promote rational prescription of antibiotics. In this review, we will briefly introduce some examples of AMR to illustrate the extent of this issue. We will then move on to describe AMS programs and the strategies required to

Antibiotics, composed of microorganisms such as streptomycin and penicillin, kill other infectious microorganisms in the human body. At one point, antibiotics were considered to have “basically wiped out infection in the United States”, but due to their overuse and evolutionary

A couple times a year local and national mass media put the spotlight on problems connected to antibiotic overuse. Some people consider those problems to be real and serious, and others think that the discussed topics are nothing more than new “fashionable” subjects to talk about, distracting people from “real” problems, such as climbing gas prices or war expenses. Meanwhile, antibiotic overuse continues as a common practice among US doctors and agribusinesses for the last 20 years. The practice of antibiotic overuse has put patient’s health at risk, contributed to antibiotic resistance and increased bacterial mutation to a new, stronger level; as well as it hitting the economy with new costly expenses in health care. It is time to stop

Throughout my life, adults have insisted the use of antibiotics to fight against the most inconsequential illnesses, whether it’s the cold or the flu. However, neither illness is due to invasion of bacteria. This misuse can lead to antibiotic resistance, also known as antimicrobial resistance(AMR), currently one of the central issues facing the public health system. While the process for antibiotic resistance occurs naturally through the process of adaptation, the mismanagement of antibiotic resources has accelerated the rate at which the bacteria adapt. The occurrence of this misinformation isn’t limited to a few adults: even some of my peers suggest taking antibiotics when faced with the flu. This leads to asking whether AMR is truly a problem and are present regulations enough to combat the issue.

Antibiotics are inarguably one of the greatest advances in medical science of the past century. Although the first natural antibiotic Penicillin was not discovered until 1928 by Scottish biologist Alexander Flemming, evidence exists that certain plant and mold growths were used to treat infections in ancient Egypt, ancient India, and classical Greece (Forrest, 1982). In our modern world with the advent of synthetic chemistry synthetic antibiotics like Erithromycin and its derivative Azithromycin have been developed. Antibiotics have many uses including the treatment of bacterial and protozoan infection, in surgical operations and prophylactically to prevent the development of an infection. Through these applications, antibiotics have saved countless lives across the world and radically altered the field of medicine. Though a wonderful and potentially lifesaving tool, antibiotic use is not without its disadvantages. Mankind has perhaps been too lax in regulation and too liberal in application of antibiotics and growing antibiotic resistance is the price we must now pay. A recent study showed that perhaps 70% of bacterial infections acquired during hospital visits in the United States are resistant to at least one class of antibiotic (Leeb, 2004). Bacteria are not helpless and their genetic capabilities have allowed them to take advantage of society’s overuse of antibiotics, allowing them to develop

The superbug poses a huge threat to society in many ways and it raises many issues. How should the patient be handled? How many different types of antibiotics are too much for a person to retain? How can people living in poverty prevent the spread of bacteria? The rise of the superbug produces numerous questions surrounding the care of patients and the fast spread of the resistant bacteria. The way scientists and doctors treat and care for their patients should be top priority, but when the patient is either living in poverty or in an area with limited resources it becomes difficult. In many poor cultures the superbug is growing much faster because they don’t necessarily have the understanding to prevent the spread of bacteria. In places like India and Pakistan antibiotics can be bought readily at pharmacies without prescriptions. Because many people think antibiotics can cure anything they use them inappropriately, therefore creating an environment for the bacteria to grow resistant. This is a major issue in Southern Asia as the rise of superbugs is much faster here than other countries. Reasons for this include the ease of access to antibiotics, the method of isolation for patients with

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

In this time and age, with the astounding development of large-scale livestock feeding operation of swine, poultry and especially cattle, the antibiotics are used globally to keep the animals healthy and promote their

The problem is that antibiotics resistance has become a very big problem in todays society. Antibiotics are no longer effective against certain super-bugs such as MRSA.

The competency, “Analyze determinants of health and disease using an ecological framework” was met through the exercise, “Health Problem Analysis Worksheet” and through reading Chapter 2 in the book Public Health: What it is and How it Works.

Aiming to educate individuals and health care providers about resistant bacteria’s negative influence on their long-term health, Europe launched a project in 2007: Burden of resistance and disease in European nations (Burden) since the Department of Health identified the lack of data on antibiotics (as cited in Kaier et al. 493). In response to this strategy, United Kingdom’s Department of Health and Environment implanted an antimicrobial resistance strategy from March 2013 to 2018 to promote the responsible antibiotic use for animals and humans and to enhance the guidelines of monitoring antibiotic use (as cited in While 345). So far, it seems like Europe’s strategies are far ahead than North America who has not yet executed any strategies to reduce antibiotic resistance despite the heavy usage of antibiotics as mentioned earlier. Finally, new guidelines are in place by Europe’s government: NG15 and KTT9. NG15 states recommendations regarding antibiotic stewardship in organizations, which includes monitoring antibiotics, identifying resistance patterns, and providing feedback to prescribers. KTT9 summarizes evidence gained from antibiotic prescribing which “emphasizes the importance of minimizing antibiotic prescribing and using simple generic antibiotics where possible, thereby reserving broad spectrum antibiotics to treat resistant

Levy, M.D., who has studied the subject for years, estimates that there are “ 15-17 million pounds of antibiotics used sub-therapeutically in the United States each year.” Apparently, antibiotics are given to animals for therapeutic reasons, but that use isn't as controversial because few argue that sick animals should not be treated. The biggest controversy however, is the fact that antibiotics are used to treat human illnesses, but they are administering them to food animals. The subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals can pose a health risk to humans. For example, If a group of animals is treated with a certain antibiotic over time, the bacteria living in those animals will become resistant to that drug. Concern about the growing level of drug-resistant bacteria has led to the banning of subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in meat animals in many countries in the European Union and Canada. In the United States, however, such use is still

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).

According the World Health Organization (WHO), antibiotic resistance is one of the world’s greatest health threats to date (Haddox, 2013). In the article, The Health Threat of Antibiotic Resistance, Gail Haddox (2013) discusses the danger antibiotic resistance poses in today’s society and strategies to prevent the expansion of antibiotic resistance. In Europe alone, an estimated 25,000 deaths have been attributed to multi-resistant infections (Haddox, 2013). Common infections are now harder to treat due to the increased resistance to antibiotics across the world, in fact some are becoming untreatable. Antibiotics should be treated like oil, a non-renewable resource (Haddox, 2013).