The Drug Of Resistant Strains Among Nations

Antibiotics differ from many other drugs in the fact that the treatment is for a very short time compared to drugs used to treat hypertension, diabetes, Parkinson’s, or cancer. The latter disorders have in common that the treatment, from the moment of diagnosis, is life-long. The treatment period for antibiotics is only a few weeks, making the return of investment poor. Increasing demands of authorities in both development and marketing phase and in legislation increase the costs of new antibiotics.[1] [3]

Widespread use of antibiotics has been very controversial in the media as well in the general population. Due to these controversies, it is very misunderstood to how antibiotics work leading to many patients in the hospital setting wanting to take them when it is not necessary or refusing to take when it is necessary for their survival. Some of this controversy is due to antibiotic resistance, which has spread an alarming rate in the 21st century (Walsh, 2000). Antibiotic resistance is the result of very strong bacteria or microbes that are resistant to the antibiotic prescribed and those microbes accumulate overtime by their survival, reproduction and transfer, leading to increased levels of antibiotic resistance.

In the past tense 60 years, antibiotic drugs have been critical to the fight against infectious disease caused by bacteria and other microbe. Antimicrobial chemotherapy has been a lead cause for the dramatic rise of norm life expectancy in the Twentieth Century. 1 However, disease-causing bug that have become resistant to antibiotic drug therapy are an increasing public health trouble. “Wound contagion, tuberculosis, pneumonia, gonorrhea, childhood ear infections, and septicemia are just a few of the diseases that have become hard to treat with antibiotics.” 2 One part of the job is that bacteria and other germ that cause infections are remarkably resilient and have developed several ways to resist antibiotics and other antimicrobial drug. 3 Another part of the problem is due to increasing use, and abuse, of existing

When people go into hospitals, they expect to be treated from what illness they have. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that one in twenty-five patients will obtain nosocomial infections (Mercola No p). Readers may think that these statistics are not that bad, but when readers become educated on how dangerous and how easy it is to acquire this infection they will think twice. The most common ways to acquire nosocomial infections are central line-associated bloodstream, catheter-associated urinary tract, surgical site after surgery, clostridium difficile infections (Mercola No. p). People may think to take antibiotics to help get over illness. In the long run taking antibiotics is not always going to help a person. Some pathogens that antibiotics are resistant to are Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), Neisseria Gonorrhoeae,

Throughout the centuries the improvement of medicine has always been on the run. Whether the cure for a viral or bacterial infection to the simple cure of a common cold, advances in medicine can be said to have had a great impact in the lives of many in the U.S. and around the world. In the U.S. alone, the life expectancy of an American increased from 49 years to 77 years because of the new way of life in the health aspect. There is no doubt that antibiotics specifically, not to say the prevention of diseases by public health regulations including over-the-counter drugs and surgical procedures, have saved thousands or even millions of lives in the U.S and around the world. However, there are many cases in which antibiotics are being overused, which in effect cause more harm than good.

There is a very real danger that medicines currently used to treat infection will become completely ineffective if they are used too often and

When assumed that a patient carries a highly infectious pathogen it is important for health care settings to take high safety measures to reduce the amount of anti-bacterial resistance. A highly infectious disease is one which can be transmitted via contact or droplet, making the infection more transmittable. Antibiotic resistance infected people are classed under high risked individuals because this is when the effectiveness of a treatment is reduced and therefore the patient with the infection must stay in hospital for a longer period of time or may even end up with a chronic disease (Betterhealth.vic.gov.au 2015). An economic strain is put on the health care system due to the increased cost in treating the resistant infection and the use of health care facilities. A study which examined 188 people who were suffering from Antibiotic resistant infections were estimated in 2008 to cost around $13.35 and $18.75 million dollars(8.63-12.12millionGBP) in only one health care institution (Frieden

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).

Antibiotic resistance had been a crisis in the United States for many years now. According to the CDC, “up to 50% of the time, antibiotics are not optimally prescribed, often done so when not needed, [or with] incorrect dosing or duration” (CDC). More and more bacteria are becoming antibiotic resistant mostly due to incorrect amount and length of dosage, while sometimes, even the actual antibiotic is incorrectly given to the patient. Because of this, many strains of bacteria had become resistant to these antibiotics and thus, have infected more and more

“Upon receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1945 Alexander Fleming predicted, ‘The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone… Then there is the danger that… under-dosing (not taking full schedule of antibiotic as prescribed) will expose microbes to non-lethal quantity of the drug, making them resistant,’” (291) Almost seventy years later and Flemings prediction has come to light. Currently there are three known bacteria strains. They are MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), and VISA/VRSA (vancomycin- intermediate/resistant staphylococcus aureus). These resistant strains are what we call super infections because they are a lot harder to get rid of and are highly contagious.

The implications for practice include the need to refer to multiple resources and compare information about antibiotic resistance. It also indicates that different antibiotics may need to be used across the varying clinical settings and between facilities. These factors should all be considered to reduce the risk of treatment failure and to minimise subsequent development of antibiotic resistance.

Humans have come to rely on antibiotics for almost every illness known to man. The use of antibiotics has saved thousands of lives. However, our reliance upon antibiotics may have to come to an end because, the bacteria that we use antibiotics on have begun to evolve. This is not a mere epidemic. These are not just localized cases. This is a prevalent change all throughout the world. I can only picture two ways to overcome this attack. One way is the reduction of antibiotic use. The other method is that we need to create new and improved antibiotics to surpass the evolved bacteria. Marcelino Campos believes that, antibiotic resistance is a serious issue in which our medical systems need to find a solution (1). Understanding why antibiotic resistance

The development of antibiotic resistant strains are on the rise especially in developing countries and are creating a crisis in the effective treatment of infections.1,5

With the drug-resistant bacteria still slowly spreading all across the United States and around the world, our supply is slowly running dry.

Take for example MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a S. aureus strain that was discovered in 1961 to be resistant to the antibiotic methicillin. Webmd indicates that MRSA has now grown its resistance from methicillin to “amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin and many other common antibiotics” (MRSA). This increase in resistance of a methicillin-resistant strain of S. aureus can be attributed to the increasing use and overuse of antibiotics, not only in the doctor’s office but also in agriculture. MRSA is only one of many antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. New resistant strains are evolving rapidly. According to Dr. Ed Warren, “there are high levels of antibiotic resistance in bacteria causing common infections (e.g. urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections) in all regions of the world” (21).