Antibiotic Resistant Bugs in the 21st Century

For most of the 20th century, the advances made in the field of medicine produced cures and treatment regimens for many diseases, including antibiotics. Unfortunately, many of the bacterial diseases, once thought defeated by the existence of antibiotics, resurfaced towards the end of the 20th century in new, antibiotic-resistant forms, challenging the medical community to discover new ways to treat these deadlier forms of disease.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics are drugs that treat bacterial infections in the body. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the antibiotic category also includes antimicrobial drugs, which differ from traditional antibiotics in that some antimicrobial drugs are created synthetically while all antibiotic drugs are biological in nature. The CDC says that since their introduction in the 1940s, antibiotics have "transformed medical care and dramatically reduced illness and death from infectious diseases."

Types of Antibiotics

Scientist Alexander Fleming discovered the first known antibiotic in 1927. For years, penicillin was treated by the medical community as the ultimate wonder drug, a virtual panacea for bacterial infections. Even today, one of the first questions asked of hospital and emergency room patients is whether or not they are allergic to penicillin. Other forms of antibiotics include cephalosporins, macrolides, fluoroquinolones, sulfonamides, tetracyclines and aminoglycosides.

Not a Panacea

Unfortunately, the success rate of using penicillin and other antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis, became so firmly established in the minds of the medical community and the general public that people began to view antibiotics as cure-all drugs. Ill-informed medical practitioners prescribed antibiotics for viral infections, such as the common cold and winter flu, and many equally ill-informed patients requested antibiotic treatment for mild bacterial infections that did not require them. The amount of antibiotic overuse began diluting the effect that antibiotics had on legitimately dangerous bacterial infections.

Resistant Bacterial Infections

The Centers for Disease Control attribute the over-use of antibiotic drugs to antibiotic-resistant infections because every time a patient took the antibiotics, the drugs would kill off some of the invading bacteria. Unfortunately, while this might sound good, the surviving bacteria began to evolve to withstand antibiotic attack. Over time, as more and more people made use of antibiotics for most illnesses, the amount of surviving, resistant bacteria grew until the medical community began to see strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These new infections evolved to resist all but the most intensive antibiotic treatment.

Going into the 21st Century

One of the most troubling bacterial infections to have evolved a drug-resistant strain, tuberculosis, reputedly affects close to one-third of the planet's population, with particularly high levels of infection in underdeveloped countries, such as Africa. Drug-resistant strains are on the rise, and treatment is intensive and expensive. Many patients are unable to complete their treatment, and the surviving tuberculosis infections evolve to resist the treatment even more effectively. While scientists and pharmaceutical companies race to design new, more effective antibiotics, the Centers for Disease Control and health organizations around the world are calling for doctors and patients to discontinue use of antibiotics where they are not absolutely essential, which includes acne treatment. While the use of antibacterial hand soaps and topical cremes remains an approved and useful way of preventing bacterial infections from spreading, preventing the over-use and dilution of antibiotics may be the key to preventing widespread, drug-resistant bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis, from sweeping the globe.

References

• Centers for Disease Control: Antibiotic Resistance Questions & Answers
• eMedicine Health: Antibiotics