Consequences of Antibiotic Resistance
Consequences of antibiotic resistance
- When antibiotics were discovered, scientists thought they would be able to eradicate bacterial infections, but less than a century later a future is being imagined where many bacterial infections cannot be treated with current medicines
- Antibiotic-resistant strains are a major problem in human medicine
- Commonly prescribed antibiotics are becoming less effective as new resistant strains of bacteria are emerging. This is due to many reasons, the main being:
- Overuse of antibiotics and antibiotics being prescribed when not necessary
- By using antibiotics frequently, humans exert a selective pressure on the bacteria, which supports the evolution of antibiotic resistance
- Large scale use of antibiotics in farming to prevent disease when livestock are kept in close quarters, even when animals are not sick
- Overuse of antibiotics and antibiotics being prescribed when not necessary
- Commonly prescribed antibiotics are becoming less effective as new resistant strains of bacteria are emerging. This is due to many reasons, the main being:
- Scientists are trying hard to find new antibiotics that bacteria have not yet been exposed to, but this process is expensive and time-consuming
- Some strains of bacteria can be resistant to multiple antibiotics and they create infections and diseases which are very difficult to treat
- These bacteria are commonly known as superbugs
- The most common example is a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that has developed resistance to a powerful antibiotic called methicillin as well as other antibiotics (eg. penicillin) and is now known as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
- Bacteria living where there is widespread use of many different antibiotics may have plasmids containing resistance genes for several different antibiotics, giving them multiple resistance and presenting a significant problem for doctors
- In addition, resistance may first appear in a non-pathogenic bacterium, but then be passed on to a pathogenic species by horizontal transmission
- There is a constant race to find new antibiotics to allow treatment of simple diseases which have evolved to become potentially untreatable
Reducing antibiotic resistance & its impact
- Ways to prevent the incidence of antibiotic resistance include:
- Tighter controls in countries in which antibiotics are sold without a doctor’s prescription
- Doctors prescribing antibiotics only when needed
- Antibiotics not being used for viral infections
- Avoiding the blanket use of ‘wide-spectrum’ antibiotic, and instead prescribing specific antibiotics for different types of infection
- The tighter control of antibiotic s in agriculture
- The spread of already-resistant strains can be limited by:
- Ensuring good hygiene practices, such as handwashing and the use of hand sanitisers, especially in clinical environments
- Isolating infected patients to prevent the spread of resistant strains, in particular in surgical wards where MRSA can infect surgical wounds
